


Who Is The Monster

by mercutiowasababe



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet, Bittersweet Ending, Eventual Smut, Feral Jaskier | Dandelion, Geraskier, Hate Sex, Human Jaskier | Dandelion, Light BDSM, Light Dom/sub, Light Sadism, M/M, Monster of the Week, Mutual Pining, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slice of Life, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:02:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 30,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23457475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercutiowasababe/pseuds/mercutiowasababe
Summary: The life of adventure has been calling to him all his life, and the second he met the Witcher he knew this was destiny knocking on his door. Geralt was strong, beautiful, and surprisingly gentle- despite the incredibly painful punch to his loins he'd received the first time they'd traveled together.However, the longer Jaskier travels with Geralt the more he starts to realize the world was nothing like what he'd been taught in Oxenfurt. He's been very sheltered, very spoiled, and very stupid.He pauses on the word humans, hesitant to admit it. Perhaps uncertain of how Jaskier would take it. Maybe hoping that Jaskier would be the first human to understand it. Monster, the word thrown at Geralt everyday, wasn’t something he himself thought defined him properly. And even though Geralt’s job was to hunt and slay and kill for coin, he didn’t see them in human terms. Jaskier wasn’t sure. He was only guessing.It seemed like a pretty spot on guess though.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 35
Kudos: 224
Collections: Interesting Character and/or Interesting Relationship Development





	1. rusalka

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! This is my first fanfic, and it's been a long time since the last time I tried to write anything at all. I'll be adding to this series whenever I can, this quarantine has certainly given me a lot more free time than usual. I wanted to do something I haven't really seen a lot of in the fics I've been seeing from the fandom and I really hope you like it! Please, leave notes, crit, or just a kind word for me if you like it, it helps motivate me to write more. 
> 
> There's some blood, some violence, but nothing too graphic I promise.

It feels like they’ve been traveling for a month straight. His skin is hot, buried under an ungodly thick layer of sweat, dirt, grime, even some blood. He’d tripped. There’d been a lot of whining. 

He’s been doing chord progressions thoughtlessly all day, fingers just strumming along as he watched the horizon. Nothing but hot sun, not even a single cloud, and trees. Boring trees. The occasional tweet of a bird, not even a pretty birdsong. He’s been traveling with Geralt for a good bit now, he thinks himself quite used to roughing it, but this? 

This is torture. 

How has he managed to go this long without seeing fresh water? It rained yesterday but only for long enough to get his clothes wet, make his hair stick to his skin in a really bothersome way, and make his unwashed clothes uncomfortably stiff. He felt crunchy. All this moping about not having been able to bathe in the past two months and he finally sees fresh water but it’s only enough to be irritating. 

He’s grumpy. 

And because he’s grumpy, he hasn’t spoken a word in over three hours. He can tell his silence is beginning to worry Geralt by the way he keeps glancing over at him, expression unreadable. He knows full well his constant strumming of the same chords over and over again is beginning to irritate Geralt but he can’t quite bring himself to care. For one thing, he did need to do this regularly to keep his practice up, but the other thing is that this is the only interesting thing happening right now. Geralt’s jaw gets tighter, shoulders tenser, and eyebrows higher every time to glances back at him. 

Slowly, the sound of a gentle bubbling fills the air, entering his awareness slowly. The gentle, melodious, righteous sound of fresh, running water. 

“I’m taking a fucking bath.” It’s the only warning he allows Geralt before veering a hard left to wander off after the sound. He slips inbetween trees, bouncing on his toes, getting more an more excited with each step, searching for the source. 

“Jaskier.” He’s so enraptured by the prospect of submerging himself into cool waters and finally scrubbing himself clean that he doesn’t even glance back. He can hear Geralt gently pulling Roach to a stop as he frantically hurries to the source of the sound. 

“Oh, Melitele’s tits, Geralt! It’s a fucking puddle!” He could feel his whine bleeding into his tone and he physically couldn’t stop himself from stomping his foot, flailing his arms, and letting out a true, childish whine. Rage simmered under his skin, ready to spill over into a true tantrum and he was mere seconds away from flopping onto the ground and wailing.

“A fucking puddle! I’m so dirty, Geralt! I smell like I’ve been buried under chicken shit and grass for the past four weeks. My hair is oily, my nails are atrocious, do you see my clothes? Do you have any idea how hard it will be to clean these? All I wanted was to-“

“Jaskier, calm down!” Geralt’s tone is sharp, almost cruel, but his expression is thinly veiled amusement. “We’ve only been traveling for a week and half, it’s not my fault if you didn’t take a bath in the last town we were in.” Geralt was actively making fun of him now. Jaskier can’t control himself, he points angrily, searching for something to say that could express his inability to calm down. His need to throw a hissy fit. He’s earned this hissy fit.

“Geralt, I swear to the gods if you don’t lead me to a river today to bathe this week-and-a-half’s worth of grime off my delicate skin I will, I’ll-“ he huffs, even grumpier, words fleeing from his mind. Geralt looks far too amused. 

“This little puddle will connect to a lovely stream that you can take your sweet time bathing in.” Jaskier still wants to argue. The promise of a stream simply isn’t enough to prevent this tantrum. 

“And when will the magical stream finally appear?” 

“Tomorrow evening, if you get moving.” 

“Well. That’s not today, is it?” He huffs, trying to figure out how to let go of his need to be petty and annoying. That was much better news than he was expecting. “At least give me fifteen minutes to freshen up. I genuinely feel like my skin is about to fall off.” Geralt considers it, actually considers it, which is frankly a shock. He hadn’t expected Geralt to suddenly be so accommodating. Jaskier made an impatient shake of his head, still buzzing with a need to whine and poke and prod and annoy. 

“Ten.” He literally jumps for joy, practically skipping back to Roach, high on his minor victory. He really needed this.

“Here, hold this for me will you?” He slips his lute out from over his shoulder as he riffles through one of the bags to find his soap with his other hand. Geralt simply grunts, but takes the lute kindly enough. Jaskier can’t help but glow at the sight of Geralt tucking the instrument gently into his lap and situating his hands the way he’s seen Jaskier do it every day, multiple times a day, since they’ve started traveling together. He can’t help but see the lute as an extension of himself, almost like his child, and seeing Geralt cradle it so carefully in his hands is endearing. 

“Nine, Jaskier.” He thinks Geralt might be trying to hold back a smile as he begins to pluck at the strings.

He walks back to the stream, unbuttoning his doublet one-handed along the way. The sun is beginning to make its way back down the skies now, but the air was still hot from the midday heat. Even the grass itself looked almost-burned. The brook was more than a mere puddle, it ran fast and clear, but it was still a serious disappointment. He squats next to the water and places his doublet over his knee. He may be about to rinse off in a thin little brook in the middle of fucking nowhere, covered in mud, dirt, and sweat, but there was still no need to lay his fine clothes upon the dirt. His undershirt though, tossed to the wind. The sound of Geralt haltingly trying to find notes makes him smile as he dunks his rag into the water. 

He lets out a soft hiss as the cool rag touches his heated skin and he squeezes out the water so it can pour down his chest. He moans. This is delicious, so cool, and so sweet. He really did need this. 

“My dear witcher, would you perhaps-” He turns to look over his shoulder at Geralt with his usual flirtatious smile, dunking his rag into the brook again, only to catch Geralt already staring at him. “Why, Geralt! See anything you like?” He winks and chuckles. He likes catching Geralt looking, it makes his stomach flip in a very familiar way. Geralt scowls, and returns his attention to Jaskier’s lute. Jaskier drags his rag along his neck, unable to hold back his pleased groan, especially now that he knows he has an audience. 

This is genuinely the most pleasurable experience he’s had in a long time, in all honesty. It’s been a few months since his last time gracing the courts, and they haven’t stayed in a town long enough for anyone new to catch his eye. How distressing that he is only given ten minutes to relish this sensation. The water slowly drips down his chest and back, pooling into the hem of his pant, and he imagines the sweet bliss it will be to wade into that stream to fully submerge himself in this cool water. 

“Five.”

He begins to start rubbing his soap directly onto his skin, the apothecary told him she’d left the orange peel and some of the rosemary twigs in to act as an exfoliant. Something about allowing for a deeper clean. It wasn’t as overpowering of a smell as his usual choices, but there was a subtle sweetness to it that Geralt seemed to appreciate more than his more extravagant oils and perfumes. Something about his sensitive witcher nose. 

Was Geralt still watching? Did he regain his attention when he started activating the scent of his soap? Despite the coolness of the water his skin was heating back up, tingling, interested. Hopeful. 

“One, Jaskier.” Was his voice deeper? Raspier? Hungry? 

“Oh, Geralt, don’t be so stingy. I had four minutes left five minutes ago.” He turned to catch Geralt’s lips pull up in an almost invisible smile before he returns his attention to Jaskier’s lute in his lap, his fingers placed along the strings haphazardly. It’s still endearing. He quickly squeezes more water over his skin, not bothering to fully rinse himself of the soap. There isn’t enough time for it and the strong scent of it helps him to ignore how disgusting he still feels.

He picks his shirt up and tosses it over his head before standing up, his doublet nearly falling to the ground despite his careful planning. He does manage to catch it in time, but it isn’t very dignified. Geralt nudges Roach forward, expecting Jaskier to just keep up. He always has. 

He bounces after Geralt, tossing his doublet over Roach’s ass as he tries to keep pace, put his soap back where it belongs, and struggling to get his other arm out of his shirt all at the same time. His skin is still blessedly cool, if also still grimy, so he has no intentions of putting his doublet back on, or of even lacing his undershirt back up.

“Would you like lessons darling?” He takes his lute back from Geralt and starts to play the introductory chords of ‘Toss A Coin’. He laughs at Geralt’s exhausted groan, quickly switching to something belonging to one of his raunchier songs because he is truly a kind and benevolent bard. “Oh, that ten minutes has made all the difference my friend, I suddenly feel closer to human than I have all week.” 

He feels valued everytime he realizes how easy it would be for Geralt to simply kick Roach into a full gallop, leaving him stranded on the road every time he annoys him like this. Geralt must be amused somewhere in there, to listen to his constant strumming, babbling nonsense, ceaseless flirting, and childish need to get a rise out of him every step of the way. He may not say it with his grown up words, but he tells Jaskier all the same. 

Always true to his word, the little brook has connected to a full stream by the next day. If it hadn’t been for the very refreshing rinse off yesterday, Jaskier would have run and jumped into the water fully clothed and refused to leave until he was shining and new. But now, skin still feeling cool, he could wait when Geralt asks him to, tempted by the offer of being allowed to go to the stream and take his time while Geralt sets up camp and makes dinner. 

“Oh, you beautiful brute, you truly do care for me, don’t you?” Geralt ‘hmm’ed. 

The sun is only just beginning to set when he gathers up his things and makes the somewhat anxiety-inducing trek down the rocky terrane until his bare feet finally hit the water. It is freezing. It is orgasmic. He was promised he could take his sweet, darling time, and he fucking does. He washes his body twice, sighing with pleasure as he scrapes the dirt from his scalp. He rubs chamomile oil into his aching muscles, taking care around his still busted shins and the meaty part of his left palm.

Once he’s fully satisfied with the cleanliness of his body he sits his pretty little bottom on one of the rocks along the perimeter of the stream and begins to wash his clothes. Just one set, so he can put on something clean in the morning, and arrive into town without looking like Geralt had dragged him behind Roach the entire way. 

That’s when he starts to hear it. Just faintly at first, lilting. Almost melodious. A giggle, clear as bells. 

Jaskier begins to wring out his clothes, cautious, but not quite willing to leave. He could hear the fire at camp crackling away behind him, not too far away, but far enough that Geralt wouldn’t hear anything unless he was actively paying attention. No need to go running when he isn’t sure there’s really anything here to run from.

The giggling continues, gaining strength, as he slaps his new clean clothes onto a dry rock above his head, stacking his soaps and oils on top of the pile, ready to grab in one pile if he needs to make a hasty escape. He’s looking around, trying to determine the source of the giggling, but there’s nothing to see just yet. He’s intrigued. 

When her head finally bobs above the water, a pair of eyes staring directly at him, just a few yards away from him, he pushes himself higher onto the rocks so that the only part of his body still in the water are his legs, knees down. 

He knows enough after his time traveling with Geralt to know he is prey. He’s also still stupid enough to stay, doing nothing to get Geralt’s attention. This could still potentially go one of two ways: One, he was about to have a very fun romp with a local maiden or Two, he was about to have a very interesting conversation with something that wanted to eat him. Either way, he was simply too fascinated to risk Geralt pulling him out of the way to defend his chastity or life just yet. It’s not often he finds himself face to face with the very monsters he spends all his time singing about. 

“Hello handsome.” Her eyes sparkles as she fully emerges from the water, still moving slowly towards him, hair plastered to her skin protecting her modesty. She smiles and her teeth all end in a point, very sharp, very frightening.

Food then.

“Madam.” She floats over, giggling her little bell giggle, her body’s movements not disturbing the water in the least, and places one beautiful, slender hand on his ankle. Her hair is as white as the foam of the sea, her eyes the exact color of the stream, and he is fairly certain her fingers are webbed. Her nails are certainly sharp and they dig into his skin, just a little, just enough to promise pain without causing it. 

“My, you look absolutely delicious.” She licks her bottom lip, sucking her fanged teeth over the plump, pink skin. She has a little cleft chin. Her other hand finds his other ankle, and she runs her hand up his shin, cupping around his knee. 

“Tell me, Madam, ah. Do you remember your name?” She keeps her soft smile, but he can see he’s bothered her by the way she tilts her head, the way her eyebrow ticks up, the look in her eye becomes colder. He’s surprised and annoyed her. He’s found that he is very good at that. Finding the little hidden spots and poking them, little buttons that turn a person’s anger on. It’s, well, it’s a very powerful feeling, knowing you can turn people on and off and back on again with ease. 

“What ever could you mean, boy?” She says boy like it’s an insult. It makes him smile.

“R something. Ru, ru, rus.” He snaps with each syllable, playing it up. Her teeth sharpen, becoming more and more monstrous as her face twists in anger. He hisses when her nails dig in a little deeper. “Oh, yes. Rusalka.” He leans back and looks smug, making direct eye contact.

She snarls, her eyes turn milk white, and her skin begins to develop a green hue. Her nails brake the skin, just enough to let the blood trickle down. Only then does he experience a flash of fear shooting like electricity from the back of his head down his spine, into his extremities. It’s exhilarating. 

“There you are. You’re beautiful.” 

“Stupid human, staring into the eyes of a monster that wants to eat him and asking her stupid questions about old wive’s tales.” She crawls up the rock face without effort, straddling him, wrapping her arms around his neck. “You’re just food, saying whatever you think you need to say to breathe one minute longer.” She twists her fingers into his hair, yanking his head back so he has to look up into her eyes. 

“Careful, Rusalka. I have a Witcher friend not far away. Just one shout and he’ll come running.” She hisses, yanking his head back one more time before slipping her legs back into the water, keeping her hands on his body, nails digging in just deep enough to raise it, leaving behind the occasional pinprick of blood. Jaskier winces and whines, trying to twist his body away from her. She’s scratched from behind his shoulder all the way down his chest, her hands resting on his thighs, nails still digging in. She doesn’t cease her eye contact the entire time.

“I could drown you far quicker than your witcher-“ she spits it like it’s a curse, “would ever be able to come to save you.” 

“Yes, but, ow, he would still come. All you have to do is answer my questions, and we could both leave here alive. You could have many, many more meals, and I could say I’ve spoken face to face with a monster and lived to tell the tale.” 

“A poet?” 

“A bard.”

“Ah, stupid in more ways than one. Surprising.” She considers his words for a moment, and snarls as she lets him go. She slinks back, returning her original glamour. He can’t help but miss the pure, milk white of her eyes, the inhuman shape of her teeth. It’s intoxicating the way he’s manipulated his way into her space, skin oozing blood, but still breathing. 

“Don’t hide from me, Madam. I wasn’t lying to you before, you are beautiful.” Her eyes close to slits, uncertain, but she doesn’t lift her glamour again. To be food, to be looked at by your predator, to know that part of the illusion meant to lull you into your death was to intended to fill you with desire. It was a heady experience, fear and lust swirling together. She watches him, expression unreadable, unmoving. Inhumanely still. “Do you remember your name?”

“It’s been years human, centuries maybe. I can’t remember much of anything. This existence, it takes.” 

“Takes how?”

“And what makes you think I’m so interested in chatting up my food?” Her teeth have stayed sharp, a reminder of what she is, what she wants. He smiles, can’t help it. He’s floating in the ecstasy of her attention. It feels like he’s back in the courts, playing the same old word games he’s played his whole life. 

“Who else is going to ask?” She suddenly looks so small. Her shoulders fall, her false irises fading back into the milk white of her sclera. How long has she been here, trapped in this water? 

“It was cold.” It’s impossible to know where she’s looking, but he can feel her full attention bearing down on him. Her voice is soft, barely audible. He leans in, legs slipping deeper into the water, up to his thigh now. “I had blood under my nails. My tongue was. Almost frozen. From the snow.” She looked small, scared. 

“Jaskier! Get out of the water you fool you’ll get hypothermia at this rate.” He doesn’t bother to look away from her long enough to see where Geralt is. At this point, the scent of his blood in the air, and the silence from his lack of movement might have begun to put Geralt on edge. Clearly enough to get him to come looking for him. 

“My father cracked the ice with his fist, holding me down by my hair.” She begins to move closer, her hands grabbing hold of his thighs, pulling him. “He wrapped his hands around my neck and forced me under the water.” Once his hips hips the water her hands gently move up his chest, wrapping around his shoulders, gently pressing into the scratches she’d left behind earlier. He hisses with the pain but it makes him all the more willing to respond to her touch, letting himself be pulled away from the stream’s edge. “I don’t remember what he looks like, I don’t know whose blood was under my nails, I don’t know how old I was. All things my time here has stolen from me.”

“Jaskier, what the fuck!” 

“All I can truly remember are my lungs burning for air. Water pouring into my nostrils, filling my lungs with every gasp I could manage.” He could hear Geralt scrambling down the rocks, but it sounded far away, from another time. The water began to splash into his nose as she dragged him farther and farther. 

“I’m tired, human. I’ve been here too long. My life was short and I was hungry.” 

“Jaskier, you stupi-” Geralt’s words are drowned out by the water and now that he’s caught in her arms all he can feel is the fear. His heart is pounding and he starts to flail, but she’s wrapped around him, holding him down, dragging him into impossibly deep depths for the stream he remembers bathing in. She leans close, tongue tracing the shell of his ear before she bites down hard enough to open his skin. 

“Cathryne.”

She lets go of him suddenly, pushing him away, and he desperately swims for the surface. He sees her body yanked from the water as he comes up for air, gasping, struggling for breath as he begins to cough, water pouring from his nose, his mouth. He’s shaking. Suddenly something crashes back into the water, loud, splashing everywhere. He watches, terrified, still gasping as the blood pools out of her body, sinking, swirling, almost purple in the light. 

Geralt is yelling at him, hand fisted in his hair as he drags him up the bank. He should’ve expected this when he first heard Geralt call his name, but he’d been enthralled by her body pressed against his. There was a witcher right fucking there and he still almost let a Rusalka drown him. Geralt pushes him towards the camp, tossing his bundle of clothes and oils onto the ground by the fire, too furious for words now. 

Jaskier was still naked, and he was pink down to his toes with embarrassment and shame. He was suddenly freezing, teeth chattering, body shaking. Geralt tossed a blanket over him and handed him a bowl of the food he’d prepared. A stew, actually. How serendipitous. He sipped at the broth, sat close to the fire, and let the guilt tie itself into thick, heavy knots in the pit of his stomach. At some point Geralt had given up on yelling at him, too furious for words, and Jaskier couldn’t bring himself to say anything in his own defense. He’d been really stupid, he’d almost died for no good reason. 

“This is probably the best stew you’ve ever made Geralt, thank you.” Geralt grunts, cleaning the blood from his sword, shoulders tense, jaw clenched, still mad. It’s been long enough that Jaskier isn’t cold anymore. He’s not a fan of Geralt being mad at him. “I’m sorry Geralt.” It’s not easy for him to say, it comes out in an almost whisper. Sorry was something Jaskier never wanted to say, rarely feeling like he’d done anything worthy of the sentiment. 

“Just. I’m right here, Jaskier.” He levels him with a hard stare. Jaskier’s mouth went dry and after a few moments he had to look away, Geralt’s stare too intent. Too raw. He’d really hurt him. He pushed down his anxiety, gathered up his never, and moved to sit next to Geralt, knocking their shoulders together, pressing his thigh into Geralt’s. 

“Thank you. Geralt.” Their thighs touch, its warm, and after some time Jaskier can feel Geralt slowly relax into his touch. As much as Jaskier wishes he could fill the silence with his usual nonsense, he can’t quite escape the feeling of her teeth sinking into his ear, whispering of a name swirling around his head. How much of it had been a story? A monster changing her body, using the just-right words, to take a hold of his body and drag him down, enthralled and pliant. How long had she been there, trapped by time, the only memory not stolen from her the most painful one?

He couldn’t help but think it. A swirling whisper, quiet, insistent. She’d existed for so long, water in her lungs, snow on her tongue. She’d wanted Geralt to see her drag him down. She’d wanted to be freed. 

“They’re not all monsters are they, Geralt?” He doesn’t seem to react. He doesn’t look away from the fire, just keeps eating. It takes so long that Jaskier is certain that Geralt isn’t going to answer him at all. 

“Jaskier. Monster is something humans made.” He pauses on the word humans, hesitant to admit it. Perhaps uncertain of how Jaskier would take it. Maybe hoping that Jaskier would be the first human to understand it. Monster, the word thrown at Geralt everyday, wasn’t something he himself thought defined him properly. And even though Geralt’s job was to hunt and slay and kill for coin, he didn’t see them in human terms. Jaskier wasn’t sure. He was only guessing. 

It seemed like a pretty spot on guess though. 

“I used to think I had an education Geralt.” Jaskier doesn’t hide the bitterness in his tone, can’t hold back his sad excuse for a smile, mostly a scowl. The night crawls on. Geralt’s body next to him is hot. The sound of the stream’s gentle bubbling goes on and on. The fire spits and crackles. It’s almost peaceful.


	2. she-wolf

They arrive in town at midday. The sun is high, and hot, and they travel past a couple of farms before they make it to the part of the town that can actually be considered the town. It’s just a few shops, nothing too interesting, only one street. This was probably the smallest town he’s seen thus far in their adventuring together. 

Geralt didn’t seem to notice the other people when they did happen to walk past them, but Jaskier did. He saw the way everyone glared, or mumbled, sometimes just stood there and stared until he was out far enough out of sight that they could comfortably continue their original task. 

The inn doubled as the town bar, which seemed like the only store that also sold a hot meals, though to be fair Jaskier wasn’t really bending over backwards to pay too much attention to the other stores on their way through. 

He slipped away from Geralt as he took his time unpacking Roach, hopefully the innkeeper didn’t notice Jaskier walking up with him.

“Hello there my good sir!” Jaskier slathered his charm on thickly. “What a fine establishment you have here. I couldn’t help but notice the sign you have out there adverti-”

“Room’s a undred coin a night.” Jaskier blinks, shocked, mind blank for a moment. He may sputter a little. 

“I’m sorry, ah. Hmph. Well, doesn’t that seem a little-“

“We don’t like your kind here.” He goes back to drinking his ale and glowering at his customers. Jaskier’s trying to figure out how to handle this, angry and loud, or charming and smooth talking. 

“Hundred coin’s fine. How much to order a bath?” Jaskier jumps, spinning to look at Geralt, mouth hanging open, but he’s also trying to understand why guilt is twisting into his surprise. Did he really just agree to that? No attempt to haggle at all? 

The innkeep slams his mug on the countertop, leveling Geralt with a scowl. 

“Another hundred.” Jaskier smacked his hand on the counter and pointed at him with his other. He’s decided he’s going to handle this angrily. 

“Okay you fuc-“

“Fine. Here.” Geralt tosses a coin-purse onto the countertop, making direct eye contact with his ‘I’m strong and scary’ attitude. Jaskier grinds his teeth together angrily. Why in the name of all the gods is Geralt just allowing this man to burn through all of their good coin?

The innkeep snatches the coin, rolling his eyes, and tosses a key at them before finishing off his mug and walking away. 

“Geralt, what in the world was that?” Geralt leveled Jaskier with a tired expression before turning away to pick their bags up off the floor. Jaskier might be staring to realize. He feels something worse than guilt and anger mixing together. Pity. It’s bitter, it’s nauseating, and it makes him feel like a shit friend for feeling it. So he covers it up with the only soothing thing he can do right now.

“Are you hungry? I’m looking forward to having a nice, hot meal. One that has, hopefully, been very well seasoned. Though you did just order a bath would you prefer to wait or,” he rambled on like this the entire way up the stairs, key in hand, until he began to putter out once Geralt was on the bed and unlacing his boots. He’d run out of talking points, his mind was too stuck on food. He was standing by the door, chewing his lip, slapping the key into his open palm. Clearly nervous.

“Jaskier,” Geralt sighs, shoulders falling before he looks right at him, “it’s a hot bath, a hot meal, and a soft bed to sleep in for the night. It’s not the most I’ve been asked to pay for these luxuries.” Jaskier huffs and Geralt tosses his shoes into the corner.

“Well, that’s not exactly a comfort, Geralt.” Jaskier falls into the chair, legs splayed out, head resting on his palm. 

“Oh? Was I supposed to be comforting you?” He smiles one of his small, secret smiles and goes to answer the door when theres a knock. The bath has arrived. 

At this point Geralt has become wholly shameless. He’s already shirtless by the time the attendant has finished filling it up and the poor boy’s barely made it out before Geralt was totally bare. It made Jaskier chuckle. Usually people wait until the water stops boiling before they dunk themselves in but Geralt seemed to really like the water most when it was still boiling. Maybe witcher skin is just impervious to heat. Geralt lets out a soft sign once he settles in.

Jaskier pulls his journal from his lute-case, opens it up to where he’d tucked in his pen, and goes about putting to paper the nose-to-nose interview he’d had with the rusalka the other day. There’s been a melody twinkling in his mind since right before he’d fallen asleep, and he wanted to try to capture it and build on it. Something ice cold, quick in the beginning and end with something hauntingly slow in the middle. He wanted people to sing along without realizing they were singing something sad. The time passes by quietly for a while, both of them silently enjoying their activities. It’s amicable, a comfortable silence. Jaskier doesn’t experience those often, but they seem to be Geralt-specific. 

“Jaskier, will you bring me your soap?” He smiles to himself and looks around for the bag that it would be packed in. “Oh, your own soap not good enough for you anymore? My, my Geralt, how spoiled you have become.” He finds the soap, and while he’s at it he may as well pick up Geralt’s comb and hair scrub, too. The hair scrub was a gift, one that he’d gotten mostly for himself because there was no convincing Geralt to care for his own damn hair, gods only know how long it’d been since he’d combed it before Jaskier came along. 

Geralt huffs grumpily. 

“Yours smells nicer.” 

“Ohh, ho ho, very spoiled then.” He chuckles as he tosses his soap into the water and grabs his chair to situate himself behind Geralt. 

“What do you think you’re about to do?” 

“Oh, hush, you spoilsport, I’m going to take care of your hair. Poor mess you’ve made of it. I wish you’d at least brush it semi-regularly.” He set about his task, starting from the bottom and brushing up like the way he’s been taught by his various female companions.

“Last time I tried to brush it you snatched it out of my hand and yelled at me for doing it wrong. I’m just not interested in having that conversation again, much easier to just let my hair continue to be what it is.” 

“It’s a surprise you don’t just cut it all off, seems like ripping it out one clump at a time would be too slow for you. Okay, dunk for me darling.” He smacks his shoulder because he can, because he likes how it’s strong and bounces, and he likes the way Geralt lets him. It’s also nice to watch him slip into the water, dunking his hair without asking, without hesitation, at his request.

“Thank you.” Geralt ‘hm’s again, his favorite word. 

They’re quiet as he works the hair scrub into his hair, paying extra attention to the lank, dry ends. His hair could be so beautiful if he just took that little extra care of it. It’s therapeutic, running his fingers through Geralt’s hair slowly, working the grainy scrub into his scalp. He doesn’t feel the need to chatter, to fill the silence, to pry Geralt open and sift through the odds and ends to find all the right buttons to make him smile and laugh and moan. He likes people, loves them really. 

Geralt though. Geralt was different, he stuck around in his mind, even if he was no longer in his direct line of sight. Even if they’d been separated for several weeks. He’d never forgotten anyone’s name before, he recognized every face sooner or later, and the moment he saw them his love bloomed all over, quick to come flooding back.

But Geralt. That love stayed. 

He wasn’t sure what to do about it. He didn’t want to pry him open the way he usually did with people. He wanted to wait until Geralt opened up all on his own. He wanted to be let in, led through the halls, shown each button, and given a detailed explanation of what each of them did. 

“Were you working on a new song?” 

“I was, yeah. I’ve got this,” he taps the rhythm he’s been thinking about on Geralt’s shoulder, “circling around in my head. Interesting, right? I wanna do something different from my usual fare of heroic ballads.” 

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Something, ah. More respectful.” Geralt turns to look Jaskier in the eye, inquisitive and almost amused. 

“And what happened to making history?” Jaskier smiles, tugging on his hair to convince him to turn back around while he worked the scrub into his scalp. 

“Yes, well, Geralt, the bulk of my fare will continue to be historic, but once or twice I may be allow myself to slip in something that will challenge the status quo. After all, what could possibly be more historic than something that helps change the minds of the many?” Geralt chuckles at that.

“Going to start a revolution now, are you Jaskier?” Jaskier shrugs. Maybe he will. He certainly could. 

“Rinse that mess out of your hair, I’m going to see if I can rouse a few extra coins from the crowd for our dinner since that’ll probably be another extra bloody hundred coin.” Geralt dunks while Jaskier picks up his lute-case but leaves the key. 

The singing does not go well. If he’d thought the townsfolk were hostile before they were downright violent now. He’d known not to even bother singing ‘Toss A Coin’, not after the way they’d reacted by just looking at Geralt. Singing his praises might end with him hanged and quartered. No, he’d started with the more popular, crowd pleasing ones, but they all sat there and glared at him the entire way through it. They didn’t graduate to jeering and booing until he started on his third one. 

By the fifth one he’d given up on trying to win them, and now he just wanted to annoy them, to really piss them off, to run them all out of the building yelling and swearing they’ll never come back only to return with torches and pitchforks. He was shaking with energy, riding the high of this performance the same way he’d be riding it if they crowd were screaming with joy. His skin was hot, bright red, and covered in a thin sheen of sweat. Despite the spite coursing through his veins, spurring him to antagonize the audience, he was still enjoying this. He was laughing. Taunting. Fuck the lot of this town, he didn’t want their coin anyway. 

He plays ‘Toss A Coin’ for his sixth song because he has a death wish and he wants to make everyone so angry they have no choice but to fulfill it for him. He dances around the entire room, yelling more than singing, spitting out the words as he tries to avoid the food and mugs thrown at him, and all was going well until someone picked him up by the collar.

“Listen here ya shite bard,” the stranger shook him, fist pulled back to pop him a good one. Jaskier smiled, daring him to do it, hands still playing the chords triumphantly. 

“Put him down!” Geralt yelled out, voice easily booming over the crowd, staring down the man holding Jaskier up as he made his way down the steps. He was dressed plainly, but he still had his sword strapped to his back, clearly not wholly unaware of what was going on. Jaskier knew he should be thankful for Geralt’s sudden appearance but at this point he’d been looking forward to a full out brawl, a good bunch to the nose. Though, despite the adrenaline he does have a split second where he is glad his pretty little nose will be spared. 

“Oh, good, his keeper’s here. You might want ta get him a shorter leash.” He tosses Jaskier towards Geralt, tripping but more than capable of keeping himself upright and balanced. The stranger had enough good sense to look a little nervous under Geralt’s stare at least. Jaskier adjusted his doublet and squared his shoulders, ready to jump right back into that man’s face, finger pointing angrily at him. 

Geralt slams his hand on his shoulder and yanks him back, fingers digging into Jaskier’s skin. Jaskier works his jaw, grinding his teeth, hands fisted. He can feel Geralt’s breath on his ear as he steers them to a corner.

“Did you have to piss off the entire town, Jaskier? Am I not allowed a single meal where I don’t have to worry about where men holding forks want to put them?” Jaskier lets out a huff thats supposed to indicate laughter, still bitter. 

“Stay here, put that lute away before someone tries to burn it, and don’t speak either. I’m going to get us a meal.” Geralt tosses him into a chair and turns away. He’s walking strong, back straight, head up, exuding confidence, he’s trying to look scary. Jaskier likes it, it looks good on him, he wears it well. 

The crowd is beginning to simmer down, they’re no longer yelling or throwing things at least. There is still the thrum of energy high in the air, people are looking around nervously, uncomfortably. Jaskier allows himself a moment to indulge in his pride for causing the tension. 

Geralt returns with two ales, two very much appreciated ales, and a promise that food will appear eventually. 

“This town is practically begging for an excuse to riot Geralt. Does this not seem strange? I know that people tend to err on the side of caution when they see a witcher but this? Is this?” Jaskier sighs, no longer certain he will be able to contain his rage if he finishes his questioning. He focuses on his ale and tries to convince himself to calm down. Thankfully it seems that Geralt doesn’t want Jaskier to finish his line of thought either, and so their lunch continues on in silence except for the very loud glaring. It’s lovely. His chest fills with pride, enjoying energy of the room. 

They’re well into their second mugs when someone come by with their meals, dropping it to the table haphazardly. Jaskier couldn’t really fault him for that, poor guy had to sweep up all the food that the patrons had thrown at him. Despite the obvious aggression for them, the food doesn’t seem to have been tampered with in any way. Jaskier fleetingly wonders just how much Geralt had been charged for this luxury. He makes a note to demand to pay in the next town.

“Ey, Witcher.” They look up to some guy standing before them who looks at them like he’s the one who’s meal has been interrupted. The people in this town. 

“Got a contract for ya.” He tosses a coin purse onto the table, and it looks like there isn’t even enough in it to cover the cost of their meal. “Four days now my daughter been missing, the younger one. We been seeing a wolf prowling around at night, only is a lot bigger than regular. Skinny though.”

“Is that all? A missing girl and a big wolf?” 

“That’s my fucking daughter Witcher.” 

“Is there a reason why a town full of hard bodied men can’t take down a single wolf on their own?” 

“I shot it twice and it’s still kickin’ like it doesn’t even itch. It’s already killed someone, and I’ve seen it in my yard every night since ma girl’s been missin’.” 

“It killed someone when?” 

“Two days ago.”

“This wolf killed someone after your daughter went missing and you’ve not only seen it in your yard every night since, but you’ve also shot it twice?” The man looks ready to snatch the coin purse back and shove it down Geralt’s throat. 

“You takin’ the contract or no Witcher?” He spits it out like a slur. The way he speaks to Geralt, the way he says ‘witcher’, it makes Jaskier resume grinding his teeth. This town has really begun to test his patience. He’s half tempted to set it ablaze on his way out. Geralt looks like he’s considering it, almost like he knows something no one else does. Jaskier thinks Geralt must be messing with this man for the same reasons he’d been so antagonizing earlier. There’s no way he’d accept such little coin for something so silly as a wolf. 

“Okay, I’ll take it. Tell me where your farm is and we’ll be there at dusk. I suggest you stay inside for the night, this wolf is clearly after you, or your family.” The man works his jaw, glaring down at Geralt before conceding. Once he walks away Jaskier smiles, a rush of excitement shooting through him, leaning well into Geralt’s space. 

“You don’t think it’s a wolf.” Geralt glances up at him from under his lashes, only for a moment. It takes Jaskier’s breath away. His lashes aren’t long or lush, but they’re beautiful all the same. “Ah, c’mon, Geralt. It can’t be just a big wolf, that’s so boring!” He can’t keep himself from crowding, likes feeling the heat roll of Geralt’s skin, likes the way he smells like him because of his soap, likes the way Geralt lets him.

“You’re more than welcome to stay here for the night Jaskier. You can order a bath of your own, work on your new song, maybe even reorganize my bags. Again.” Geralt smiles at his joke, fully aware that that’s simply not happening.

“Well, that’s simply not happening.” Geralt drains his ale and finally takes the coin purse off the table. 

“Come on, I have some preparations to make for tonight.” He slaps Jaskier on the thigh and stands up. Of course Jaskier follows. His thigh is warm.

“We’re going tonight? So soon?”

“You think it’d be better to wait until there’s another body?”

Jaskier sits on the bed and watches Geralt inspecting his leathers as Jaskier rifles through one of his bags, the one full of the vials and bundles of pouches. He’d done this many times before, and at some point he’d figured out that if he held something up Geralt would tell him what it was, and sometimes even what it did. He’s got a pretty good idea of what about half of this stuff was now. 

“Oh, dear Melitele, what the fuck is this?” Jaskier tosses the bundle of weeds he’d just picked up to the floor beside Geralt. “Smells like a rotting skunk’s corpse covered in chicken shit.” Jaskier lifts his fingers to his nose and sniffs. And gags. Geralt looks over at the offending bundle and picks it up, inspecting it. 

“Oh, wolf’s bane. Hand me that pitcher will you, Jaskier? And I’ll need the purple vial in that bag, too.” Jaskier looks around to find the pitcher sitting on the floor beside him, and he leans over to hand it off. 

“What’s the wolf’s bane for?” He rummages around in the bag, in search of said purple vial. He pauses to sniff his fingers again. Ugh, nightmare, he’s going to have to thoroughly wash his hands. “You need a better color coding system Geralt, all of these look fucking purple.” He picks up one at random and holds it up for inspection. Geralt is twisting chunks of the weed off the bundle and drops them into the pitcher as he glances up to see the vial.

“Not that one.” Jaskier pouts some before trying his hand at making an educated guess at which one is the right one. If he said purple then surely he meant something that was super purple-y. “Wolf’s bane can sometimes have the same effect on a werewolf as catnip for a cat.”Jaskier picks up the vial that looked the most purple, Geralt shake shakes his head. “Soaking it in a sleeping potion can help calm her down, maybe even allow her a chance to revert back to her human body.” 

“Wait, I thought you said it was just a wolf? And how do you know that this supposed werewolf is a girl?” Geralt smiles, taking the new vial from Jaskier’s hand this time, and pours half of it into the pitcher along with the crushed up wolf’s bane. Jaskier sniffs his fingers again. He can smell it still, but it might just be his imagination now, he’s not certain anymore. 

“It might be a wolf, but if he’s already shot at it twice and she’s still moving around without noticing it, and she’s been missing but not dead despite the fact that someone’s already been killed after she started showing up, then it’s probably not just a wolf.” 

“And this werewolf, you’re saying it’s probably this little girl?” Geralt nods, swirling the pitcher. “How could a little girl change into a werwolf?” 

“There’s a few ways, ranging from something she did on purpose to something someone did to her on purpose.” Jaskier felt a nauseating sinking feeling. He looked down to his nails, picking the gunk out from under them. 

“Who could do that to a kid?”

“Find me a little pouch in the bag will you?” He drains his glass while Jaskier continues his rummaging. Once Jaskier’s found it he hands it over and watches Geralt fasten it around the mouth and pour the rancid contents from the pitcher into it. Geralt ties it up, twists out the remaining potion, and then has the audacity to hand it over to Jaskier. 

“What do you expect me to do with that Geralt?” 

“Drink it.”

“And why on earth would I do that?”

“Because we still have a few hours before the sun sets and I think it would be better for you if you took a nap.” Jaskier glares a he takes it, and almost gags when he smells it. 

“My god Geralt, this smells horrible.” 

“It’s not a full glass Jaskier, just tip it back and go to sleep.” 

“Will. Ah. Will the wolf’s bane harm? Me?” Geralt chuckles at that. Jaskier shoots it and tries to keep it down, hacking up from he way the scent clogs his throat and nose. “That was absolutely disgusting Geralt.” He closes his journal and tosses it to the floor, then stares at it for a moment.

“Perhaps we should pack.” Another magical ‘hm’. “This town, from the few hours we’ve spent here, they’ve made it very clear that they’re itching for a fight. If this goes sideways tonight, it’ll probably be good for us if we’re already packed, with Roach close by.” 

“It’s not a bad idea.” Jaskier stands up, journal in hand, when the blood rushes and he takes a moment to let it pass. This potion works much more quickly then he expected it to. Jaskier helps to pack everything up, stacking their bags by the door, yawning all the while. It wasn’t a task that took up too much time, they hadn’t truly been there long enough to sprawl. 

“You’ll wake me up, right? You aren’t going to leave me here, surrounded by our bags, missing out on all the fun?” He’s reaching out for Geralt’s shirt, desperate to grab a hold all of a sudden. His body feels heavy, overly warm. Jaskier catches something and pulls. Geralt could never be pulled anywhere he didn’t want to go, especially by a suddenly very sleepy, teeny armed Jaskier. He gets pulled close all the same. Jaskier smirks, tucking his head under Geralt’s chin.

“You let me do that.” Geralt says nothing, but Jaskier can feel his smile. 

“Sleep Jask.” Jaskier gasps as his calves hit the bed, and then lets out a small shriek when Geralt pushes at his shoulders, tossing him down into the bed.

“You like me.” Geralt picks up his legs and tosses them up onto the bed, helping to situate him so that he’s fully sprawled on the bed. Jaskier yawns, incapable of fighting off the sleep any longer, snuggling into his pillow. 

“I’ll wake you up at dusk.” 

“You promise?” Geralt’s thumb rubs gentle circles around his ankle, and he’s asleep in moments. 

It’s bright in the moonlight. The air is a little cool. Jaskier is still yawning, he feels bleary. They’ve been here quite a while. 

“This is boring.”

“I didn’t advertise it any differently.” Jaskier is leaned against a support beam, his limbs still feel heavy. 

“Geralt.” Jaskier sighs, a knot of worry and anxiety forming in his stomach. “How likely is it that the man who contracted you knows?” Jaskier watches Geralt work his jaw, and he knows what he thinks just from his silence. If he were going to say what he’d wanted to hear, then he would have already said it. The pause is for him to try and figure out how to tell him the truth. 

Before he has the chance to answer Geralt shoots up, nose in air, hand drawing his sword. 

“Here, take this.” Geralt doesn’t look away from the treeline but his arm is extended to him, a dagger sparkling in his hand.

“Ah, what is that Geralt?”

“It’s a dagger, don’t poke yourself with the sharp part.” 

“And what do you expect me to do-?” 

“Jaskier.” He sounds mad. Jaskier takes it, nerves ramping up that much higher. The second he’s got it in his hands Geralt takes off, jogging towards the treeline. It takes Jaskier a moment to see her, limping in the moonlight. She looks thin, whining, the two arrows sticking out of her shoulder moving with each step. He can see her black blood still oozing out of the wounds. When she spots Geralt she bares her teeth, growling. 

She looks like a scared, hungry, cornered dog. Jaskier is scared, yes, but his heart also breaks for her. A young girl, scared, turned into a monster, hungry, desperate to come home. The only thing Geralt has in his hand is a rope and a thick log of wood. His swords are still on his back, he’s not stupid, but he is. A little. 

She lunges, Geralt rolls. He uses the sudden proximity to try and wrap the rope around her neck and she nips at his hands. She’s trying not to fight him, constantly trying to maneuver around him, each movement allowing her to get one step closer. It almost becomes Geralt chasing after her, egging her on for a fight she clearly doesn’t want, whining, growling, and biting the entire time. 

The door opens behind him and Jaskier turns to see a girl, hand to her mouth, tears in her eyes, staring past him to the most tame fight with a monster that Jaskier has ever seen. Jaskier stands up, tucking the dagger into his pants, momentarily upset that he had nothing more secure to attach the sheath to. 

“Oh, god!” She looks petrified. She couldn’t be older than sixteen. “Gwen!” She screeches.

“Now, ma’am, please-” Jaskier’s standing right in front of her, but she clearly hasn’t seen him at all. When she breaks out into a run Jaskier reaches out for her, wrapping his arms around her waist and picks her up, kicking and screaming. 

“Let me go, let me go! Gwen!” His ears might start bleeding soon, and he can hear the wolf growling louder than ever before, clearly enraged by the sound of her sister’s screams. This girl is going to get herself killed if he lets go. She’s too distracted by her pain, kicking, screaming, crying, to do anything that would actually be effective in getting her out of his grasp. He’s trying to calm her down, yelling for her to do so, trying to explain that they’re not going to kill her, but she can’t hear him over her own voice. 

Jaskier can see Geralt shoving the log inbetween the wolf-girl’s teeth, giving her something to gnaw on while he wraps the rope around her neck. Once it’s secure Geralt pulls it tight, throwing her to the ground, nipping at Geralt the entire time, but she stays down. She’s clearly exhausted. 

“Let go of my daughter, you brute!” Oh, gods, this was quickly becoming a disaster. Jaskier twists around to see who it is that’s yelling at him, and the girl’s father-the man who’d contracted them earlier-is standing in the doorway with a crossbow aimed directly at him. This is just ungrateful. 

“Let her go? You want your daughter running straight for the giant wolf you contracted us to kill for you and get her damn arm bitten off?” The man grabs a fistful of her hair and yanks her out of Jaskier’s arms, easily dragging her down to her knees, only making her screams that much louder. Jaskier is horrified, who would treat their daughter in such a manner? 

“Don’t you do it, don’t you kill her you monster!” She’s slamming her fists into whatever part of her father she can reach.

Geralt starts hollering and Jaskier spins back around to watch him struggle under the weight of the wolf-girl, her teeth sinking into his shoulder, his entire arm down her throat. That heroic dumbass must’ve shoved his arm down there to force the pouch of wolf’s bane down her throat. Absolutely stupid. 

That’s when Jaskier feels the air move around his head, an arrow whizzing past his temple straight for the wolf-girl, hitting her in the side and forcing her to let out a loud whimper, allowing Geralt a moment to free his hand from her jaws. He uses this opportunity to wrap his hands around her snout, holding her mouth closed as she struggles, sneezing and hacking, clearly trying to cough up the pouch. Jaskier turns around to see the father loading and aiming that blasted crossbow again, his daughter sobbing and beating his leg all the while. 

That’s when Jaskier hears it, the crowd. These townspeople really were begging for a riot. 

“Father, please! You know this is Gwen, you can’t do this!” Jaskier can see the glow from the torches the crowd is carrying, and he can hear them chanting. 

‘Burn the monster, skin her, flay her!’ 

“Shut up, wench! You go and get the only man in this town willing to take you killed and now you’re trying to wake up the whole town so they can see that my other, useless excuse of a daughter is a disgusting animal!” He pulls back and smacks her with enough force to throw her to the ground, lip bloodied. Jaskier’s blood is boiling and he rushes the man, grabbing the crossbow and yanking with his entire body. 

“Get your hands off my bow before I sock you in your teeth you useless boy!” They’re grappling over it and the arrow loaded into it is shot off, far too close to Jaskier’s head. That scares him enough to let go of it. 

He gets socked in the mouth. It fucking hurts. He falls back to the railing, trying to breathe through the immediate, immense pain. Blood is filling his mouth, his lip might be split open, he turns to spit out the blood, ready to leave to get Roach and Geralt and let this town destroy itself. 

“What is that Witcher doing? Could running her through with a sword really be so bloody hard?”

The crowd’s made it here. This is the worst possible scenario. He can see Geralt holding the wolf-girl as she seizes, patches of fur sloughing off, slowly revealing patches of human limbs, blood pouring off of her. He’s still trying to save her, despite the riot, despite the poor girl’s own father shooting her with arrows. 

Thank Melitele’s tits they have Roach close by and fully packed to go. 

Jaskier spits his blood to the ground and he turns around to fling himself back at the man’s crossbow, trying once more to yank it out of his hands. 

The man is screaming at him, something about let go or I’ll kill you, his blood is rushing in his ears, everything too loud. This town is crazy. They’re finally getting the bloodbath they’ve been itching for since they got here. Jaskier finally manages to get the crossbow out of his hands, and he turns to throw it out into the crowd with all his strength. That’s when the screeching girl slams into him, dragging him into the ground, smashing nose. 

That little bitch just broke his beautiful little nose. 

When Jaskier manages to sit up, head pounding, he can hear a strange gurgling sound. He looks over to see the man twitching, hand to his neck as blood pours everywhere. Jaskier gasps, crawling backwards in horror. His daughter is standing over him, sobbing, hands bloodied and holding the dagger Geralt had given to Jaskier in her hands, fingers holding on so tight they’re white. Jaskier watches horrified as she goes running straight for the bloodbath.

Geralt’s already run his sword through one person trying to get to her and kill her before she’s had a chance to return to her humanity. Jaskier’s off to get Roach, he wants to get out of this insane town right now. 

How could it have gotten this bad this quick? 

It only takes fifteen minutes to run over to Roach but by the time he gets back to Geralt the crops are on fire, spreading quickly. Geralt is able to jump up onto the horse without needing any help at all, despite the arrow sticking out of his leg. Geralt takes the reigns from Jaskier, his large arms wrapping around his body, making him feel safe for the first time all night. It didn’t matter if he could still hear the yelling, the pounding in his face, or the heat from the fire. He was in Geralt’s arms, they were on Roach, they were galloping away from this insane town.

He couldn’t get the image of the wolf-girl out of his mind. He’d caught of a glimpse of her as he rode up to Geralt. Her sister was cradling her corpse, finally fully human, but there was an arrow sticking out of her neck. All that effort, all that pain, and the poor girl was killed anyway. 

That little magic fire thing he does sure is convenient. 

They’re silent as Jaskier’s helps him take off his leathers, opens up the seam on his pants where the arrow is sticking out, and lets Geralt deal with the pulling-out process. His arm is oozing blood but they’d agreed that the wound on his leg was the more important one.

Jaskier’s eyes were watering but his hands were stable as he pushed the bent needle into his skin, again and again and again and again and again. Geralt was silent the entire way through it, leaning against a tree and staying perfectly still as Jaskier sewed him back together. 

“There are salves and potions I need in my bag.” 

“More purple vials?” Jaskier’s trying to be funny, trying to be light, he lets out a huff of a laugh that sounds thick and wet. When he reaches up to wipe the tears from his eyes he can feel the coolness of Geralt’s blood being left behind. He’s ten minutes away from falling apart. He hands Geralt his bag, and gets back to his sewing, trying to finish this before his impending meltdown. Geralt opens two different vials, drinks half of each of them, pours the remainder of one on his shoulder, and gently pushes Jaskier’s hands away from his thigh to pour the remainder of the other one on the wound. His skin sizzles for a moment and Jaskier’s stomach rolls from the scent.

“Tie that off and move over to my shoulder while I start to rub this into my leg. You’ve done a great job on it Jask, thank you.” Jaskier just nods, mind blank, just struggling to push down his need to continue sobbing.

He’s got Geralt’s blood on his face. 

“Geralt, I-,” he chokes down a sob, “You just wanted to save a little girl. All this blood, pouring out of you -on my fucking face, Geralt!- to try and save the life of a child!” Jaskier tries to wipe the tears from his face again, shaking with the effort of trying to not cry anymore, when he feels Geralt’s hand on his neck, hot, solid, his thumb moving in gentle, comforting circles. 

“Jaskier, breathe.” He’s shaking, he’s trying to hold his hands still but failing miserably. Geralt’s hand curls his fingers into the hair at the nape of Jaskier’s neck, and gently pulls him in closer, almost trying to shake the panic from him.

“All this violence, for what? Why? Where the fuck were we that all those people were so desperate to murder a little-”

“Jaskier, quiet. Breathe, deep breaths.” Jaskier fills his lungs, staring into Geralt’s eyes, tears running freely. Geralt lets out a breath and Jaskier mimics him. They do this for a few minutes until Jaskier’s hands stop shaking, one of which is resting on Geralt’s neck, another one clawing at his shirt, trying to pull him closer until their foreheads rest against eachother.

Geralt’s breath is warm, puffing against his lips in regular intervals. 

This is the closest they’ve ever been. It helps him relax, he can feel Geralt’s heartbeat thrumming under his hands, focuses in on it. Geralt is alive, warm against him, holding him through this.

“Jaskier, I’m right here.” Geralt’s hand scratches his scalp, pulling his hair lightly, tilting his head up a little. It would be so easy to lean forward, capture Geralt’s mouth with his own, find comfort there. He wants to rip Geralt’s chest open and crawl inside. He wants to be closer, needs it. He feels so alone, so scared, his entire world has shifted out from under his feet and he’s desperate for something to make sense, to be easy, to be comforting. 

“Jaskier.” Jaskier twists his fingers into Geralt’s hair and tugs, rough. 

“Jaskier.” Jaskier doesn’t pause to think, to second guess, the hand holding onto Geralt’s shirt yanks him forward.

“Jaskier.” Jaskier kisses him. 

The kiss is hot, desperate, keening. Geralt’s simply allowing it, taking it in stride, moving left when Jaskier goes right. He just needs this, to take, to feel, to know that Geralt is okay, that he is in his arms. Jaskier wants to own him. 

Jaskier breaks away, hiding his face in Geralt’s shoulder, suddenly ashamed. No matter how much he gets, it won’t ever be enough. He’s smeared Geralt’s blood everywhere, they’re covered in it. He hates feeling so vulnerable, hates feeling like he’s taken something from Geralt, hates the way he’s used Geralt as a way to escape something else. 

“Shh, shh, Jask, it’s okay, you’re okay.” Geralt doesn’t move, hand still in Jaskier’s hair, still trying to comfort him. Jaskier’s seen Geralt’s blood before, even rubbed it in his eyes before. This is worse than that. He feels split in two.

“You. You.” He takes in a deep breath, lets it out shakily. Tries it again. And again. 

“A man hired you to kill his own daughter.” Jaskier’s mind was spinning, he felt like he was drowning. He’d seen violence before, he’s seen blood before, he’s seen his fair share of dead men. This was different. The first time he saw a man kill a man, a child. 

“Is this what the world is? Is this what you see?” Geralt leans into his space now, pressing a gentle kiss to his mouth. It wasn’t hungry, it wasn’t complicated. It was soothing, it asked nothing of Jaskier. Did Geralt kiss him to distract him from the answer? To comfort him more? Or did he kiss him because he wanted to? Because he wanted to be comforted just as much as he wanted to give comfort? Jaskier leaned into it, kissing again and again. The split in his lip from earlier sang out in pain with every movement, but it was welcome. That little pang of pain made the kiss feel even sweeter, made it more real.

Jaskier pulled back, incapable of bringing himself to look at Geralt. He didn’t want Geralt like this, like an escape, like something to use. He wanted to ask, to know, but he was scared. If Geralt said he kissed him because he wanted to comfort him, nothing more, then it would hurt all the more.

“Help me with these bandages and we’ll get you some bread and some water, and then we’ll sleep, and this will all be behind us when we wake up.” Jaskier nods and lifts his shirt to wipe the tears, snot, and blood from his face. 

“Should we sew up your arm? She had a lot of teeth.” Jaskier tries to lighthearted again, his voice sounded significantly more normal than before. 

“Only two or three made it past the leather, and they didn’t go deep enough to need it.” Jaskier nods again. Geralt hands Jaskier the salve he needs rubbed into his wounds while he digs out the bandages. The task helped Jaskier to stay calm, to distract him from the confusing and terrifying experience they’d just had. 

Is this why he claims to not get entangled in human affairs. How long has he been alone, seeing the worst of humans?

They finish their work in silence, the task giving Jaskier a chance to calm down, even out. Eventually Geralt grabs him by the chin, tilting his face up to inspect his nose and his lip. He carefully touches the bridge of his nose, squeezing it. Jaskier hisses, wincing. His poor nose. 

“It’s not too badly broken, just try to be careful these next few days and it should heal up just fine.” 

“Am I going to have a bump? Are people going to be able to look at it and know it’s been broken?” Geralt smiles at that and shakes his head. 

“No, it should be just fine Jaskier.” 

“Thank you Geralt.” Jaskier smiles, relieved. They eat their bread and a small chunk of cheese, lulled back into their silence. Jaskier watches Geralt in the firelight, still covered in dried blood, pants still ripped open, still leaned against the tree trunk. He was beautiful. He’d let Jaskier kiss him, he’d kissed him back. Jaskier’s been in love more times than he can count, but it’s never hurt like this before. Sitting on his chest like a physical weight, pressing on him, heavy. This was something he’d always wanted to avoid, to run from, to leave before it got this bad. He’s wanted to enjoy life, live it the loudest he could, to give, to enjoy, to please. Focusing on someone else made it so much easier to avoid being caught.

He’s been trapped, caught by this witcher, ensnared without ever noticing the noose around his neck until it was too late. He watches Geralt and despite how close they are still, he feels so lonely all of a sudden. He wanted to crawl into Geralt’s lap, feel his hands on his hips, hold his face in his hands and take and take and take. He’d known he was in trouble, but this little taste of it? It made it so much worse. It could’ve been so easy to ignore what he was missing, to ignore his fantasy. But to feel it? To know that Geralt would be so gentle? Would touch him so softly, so quickly, so willingly? Would allow Jaskier grab a hold of him and take whatever he wanted? 

He wants. He wants, and he wants, and he wants, and he wants.


	3. djinn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, thank you so much for all the encouraging comments! It's definitely been helping spur this story along! 
> 
> This got kind of angsty on me, especially since I didn't set out with that intention. This one is lacking in the overall theme of the series but I promise it'll come back in the next chapter. This one is focusing solely on Geralt and Jaskier's relationship. 
> 
> Be sure to read the added tags so nothing sneaks up on you!
> 
> Hope you enjoy! And there's smut in the next chapter so look forward to that ;)

When he sees Geralt again, it’s been quite some time. Spring was only just beginning to grace the continent once more, the mornings still carried a sharp chill, but the higher the sun climbed the warmer the day became until it was easy to think that summer had come early. Wildflowers bloomed everywhere. 

He’d caught sight of him in the crowd, walking towards him with a small smile. Jaskier’s chest exploded, he was almost lightheaded with it, he even missed a few notes from his surprise. He hopped from the stage, danced towards him, singing and circling around him, making the small crowd around them clap and whoop with joy. They didn’t seem to care he was a witcher, so distracted were they by Jaskier’s joyous music. 

Eventually he returned to the makeshift stage, watching Geralt the whole time. Geralt didn’t look away from him once. The tambourine player begins to circle Jaskier during his return, capturing his attention once more. This man clearly only just grew out of his boyhood, still thin, heavily tanned, freckled, like a foal. He circled Jaskier while he played, tracing his hands over his shoulders, flirty, sensual, playing up to the audience’s idea of his body as a sexual object, draped in flowing silks in rich, heavily patterned colors. He was painted like a doll, a magical creature, something that could only exist on the stage.

His confidence, the ownership of his sexuality, his heavy drinking and easy loving were the only reasons why Jaskier had continued to travel with this group after the first week. Playing crowd pleasing songs, acting out crowd pleasing plays, pretending to be famous and beautiful and filthy rich. These were truly Jaskier’s people, peddling a fantasy, allowing the audiences to indulge in something fun, something unique, something brazen.

This had been how he’d spent the majority of his winter while Geralt was away at Kaer Morhen. Another myserious witcher thing. It’s been about three weeks since the snow had melted and stayed that way, so he was surprised to run into Geralt so soon. They usually didn’t happen to cross paths until the summer. What a serendipitous treat. 

Once the song was over Jaskier snatched up the bottle they’d all been drinking from during the performance and walked back to Geralt’s side, offering it to him. His limbs felt languid from the wine, his cheeks were ruddy, and the sight of his love made him feel like he was floating.

“Geralt! My Darling, how was your winter? What an amazing coincidence that our paths would cross so early in the year.” Geralt, smiling, takes the wine and finishes the bottle off in moments. It makes Jaskier pout, he’d wanted to share that wine. 

“Jaskier, my old friend, I could hear your wailing from the edge of town.” Jaskier feigns offense, smacking his arm with some heat behind it.

“Let me grab my bag you old brute, I need to say my goodbyes before I disappear forever. These travelers have been very hospitable to me during this winter and the least I could do is thank them for it. I also might be able to swipe another bottle for us to share, as well.” Jaskier wanders off with a wink, hopping onto the stage and disappearing behind one of the curtains. His tambourine boy was sitting against a mirror on the make up table, bottle in hand, clearly waiting for him. 

“This your tall, dark, and handsome brute come to magic you out of my arms?” Jaskier smirks, packing away his lute before sauntering over to him. He slots himself inbetween his legs, kicking the chair out of his way, and presses their bodies close. He dips in to his kiss him, hungrily, insistent, smearing his lipstick. He trails his mouth down his neck, knowing he was getting his lover’s heavy makeup everywhere, liking the way it looks, how impossible it would be to hide what they’d done.

“Don’t pretend to be jealous, Scorpio,” Scorpio chuckles at the nickname and it’s something Jaskier likes most about him, the look in his eye when he laughs, “it doesn’t look any good on you at all.” Jaskier licks at the sensitive skin below his ear, and nips at it, just enough to make his lover hiss. He pulls back to look at him, the way his mouth hangs open, the way his pupils are blown out in desire, the way he arches an eyebrow in a silent dare.

“Oh? And what does look good on me, bard?” Jaskier takes a swig from the bottle with one hand and begins pushing up the layers of Scorpio’s skirts with his other. Scorpio takes the bottle from him, trailing his fingers lightly over Jaskier’s wrist as he does so, and makes direct eye contact as he takes his own swig. Jaskier smirks, lust making his skin hot, and pulls Scorpio closer to him by his hips, pressing their cocks together, rutting against him. Scorpio’s eyes flutter as he sets down the bottle, lips stained a deep purple now. All this beautiful skin. Jaskier crashes their mouths together again, moaning as Scorpio wraps his legs around his waist. 

Their goodbye is going to be so sweet. 

When he does return to Geralt his clothes are still unkempt and he can watch Geralt register to scent of sex on him in real time. He offers Geralt the new bottle he’s brought with him, not bothering to make excuses or apologize. Geralt takes the bottle, lifting an eyebrow curiously.

“That’s some hospitality.” Geralt says right before his lips touch the bottle. Jaskier laughs, riding high, drunk off his ass, and in the company of his one true love. 

“Oh, darling, are you jealous?” Jaskier swipes his thumb across his lip, watching Geralt to see if he follows the movement. He knows his lips are wine purple and kissed red and smeared with his lover’s lipstick. He’s drunk so he’s not sure if he’s imaging it when Geralt does follow the movement, jaw clenching, hand squeezing the bottle that much harder. He likes the thought, though, of Geralt seeing his lips covered in lipstick and watching him suck on his own thumb, and wanting to do it himself, overwhelmed with jealousy.

It’s a nice fantasy.

Jaskier bumps into Geralt, quickly loosing his ability to walk in a straight line as the effect of his consumption begins to course through his veins. His mind is swirling. His body is hot. His limbs are heavy. He wants to laugh and dance and scream. Geralt wraps his arm around Jaskier’s waist, holding him close and steady. His arm is so strong and the contact makes his body thrum with desire. Jaskier rests his head on Geralt’s shoulder and his eyes are so heavy he has no choice but to close them. 

They’ve only taken a few steps forward before Jaskier suddenly remembers his desire to dance, and he twists in Geralt’s arms, suddenly chest to chest, wrapping his arm around Geralt’s waist and grasping the wine bottle with his other. 

“Jaskier,” Geralt is trying to sound grumpy but Jaskier knows him too well by now to miss the way his amusement seeps into his tone. He can hear his smile. Geralt doesn’t smile with his mouth often, but it’s there in his voice. 

“Dance with me Geralt. It’s such a beautiful night.” Jaskier leads, relishing the way it feels to swirl in the cool night air. He rests his head on Geralt’s chest, too heavy and too bleary eyed to want to hold it up any longer, and breathes in deep. Geralt no longer smells like Jaskier since they haven’t shared soap all season, but he almost prefers this scent more. He’s missed him, and he’s glad for the excuse to hold him close. 

“You have no reason to be jealous, Geralt.” Jaskier whisper it into Geralt’s chest. Drunk, slurred, but still so true it bloomed that old, familiar ache in his chest. “Did you not see how easily I walked away from him?”

“Jaskier, you’re shitfaced.” He laughs at that, spinning away from Geralt, wine bottle snatched from Geralt’s hands, and he drinks more. He knows he shouldn’t, he far too drunk already, but he’s obliterated his self control, not that he has much of it to begin with. Geralt snatches the bottle back and drains it quickly while Jaskier paws for it, pouting.

“Hey! My wine.” He smashes his body into Geralt’s, almost falling, landing his entire weight into him, but Geralt doesn’t budge at all. He simply tosses the empty bottle away before wrapping his arms around Jaskier’s waist. Jaskier smiles, tucking his head into Geralt’s neck and begins to press open mouthed, hot, wet kisses to his skin. Then suddenly he’s completely disoriented, his feet no longer on solid ground, and his stomach lurches at the sensation.

“Cruel. You could’ve warned me before you picked me up.” 

He wakes up, bleary, overheated, head pounding. Just miserable. 

Well, this is different from where he’s been waking up.

Jaskier looks around, sitting up on his elbows, and tries to breathe in deeply, waiting for his nausea to pass. He notices a pitcher and some food set up for him on the sidetable. No note, but Jaskier didn’t expect there to be one. He’d met up with Geralt. He’d met up with Geralt. He lays back on the bed, suddenly light as a feather. He doesn’t remember much, just seeing him in the crowd, his delicious goodbye with his winter lover, and flashes and sensations of dancing. Dancing. Warm arms, the scent of leather and horse and smoke and musk. Had he danced with Geralt? How had he managed to convince the brute to humor him for something so frivolous? Gods, he hops he didn’t do anything too embarrassing. Despite his love for revelry he usually didn’t indulge to the level of blacking out. 

Jaskier spends the day in bed, unwilling to move at all, dosing in and out of sleep. He doesn’t bother to worry if Geralt would be coming back or not. He’ll worry about that tomorrow, when he doesn’t feel like he’s been run down by a horse. 

He stirs at the gentle sound of Geralt entering the room, not certain when he’d fallen asleep last. Jaskier already feels much better but he is elated when he notices the bowl of still steaming something in Geralt’s hands. 

“Oh, Geralt, please tell me that’s food for me.” He ‘hm’ed in response, and Jaskier sits up, leaned against the headboard, and takes it greedily. “Oh, blessed be, you’re my shining star today Geralt.” Geralt chuckles at that and sits himself on the edge of the bed, leaning down to begin unlacing his boots. What a good day. The room was dark, Geralt hadn’t bothered to light the heart, or a candle, and he probably wouldn’t. He was more than capable of seeing without them, but Jaskier wishes he could see him. At least he can feel Geralt’s presence, his heat, his weight. “Were you on a contract?” 

“Looking for one. Found one. We’ll set out tomorrow. Do you feel any better?” He can hear Geralt starting to remove his leathers, letting them fall to the floor without too much care.

“Much better. Thank you.” Geralt’s hands stilled on his chest piece before falling to his lap. Jaskier couldn’t see him properly in the dark, but he could sense a sudden weight in the air, a quietness he didn’t want to spoil. Geralt was clearly trying to collect his thoughts, preparing to say something. 

“You loved him?” Well, that was a surprise. It wasn’t something he thought Geralt ever paid attention to, his lovers. He wasn’t sure what exactly it was that Geralt was asking about and he couldn’t help but think about all the previous times his love has been questioned. Several times in his youth, from his parents, his acquaintances, his lovers, none of them kindly. They treated him like a child, like someone who said love when what they meant was lust, like someone who was an pitiable little puppy, lost and carefree and so fucking stupid. 

Jaskier tried to swallow down this flood of old blood from old wounds. He didn’t want to think that this is what Geralt was getting at, there’s no way this could be what he was trying to say. Geralt had never given half a shit about Jaskier’s constant dalliances before, had never seemed to even notice them, so why now?

“That’s such a hard question to answer Geralt. In my experience people aren’t asking me if I’m in love, they’re asking me if I can be allowed to call what I feel love at all.” 

“Hm.” Geralt resumes stripping himself of his leathers. Jaskier puts his meal on the sidetable, no longer hungry. 

“It’s not that it’s easy, Geralt. It’s that I won’t deny myself.” Geralt doesn’t say anything and Jaskier can’t help but feel judged, even if this is Geralt. He can’t help the bitterness in his tone, the shame that curls into the pit of stomach. His chest squeezes, tight. “Why are you asking me this?” Geralt hesitates, just a second, nothing Jaskier would have noticed if he hadn’t been looking for it. 

“Forget it, Jaskier. I didn’t mean to upset you.” Geralt doesn’t know that’s what he’s doing. He can’t know it. Jaskier’s never said it, but how can he not see it? Anyone with a pair of eyes could. Damn, maybe even the blind. But, Jaskier reminds himself, Geralt hasn’t seen it, doesn’t know it, and it doesn’t matter how many times they may kiss, Geralt isn’t going to see because he doesn’t want to. 

“Try to get some sleep, Jask. I want to set out early.” Jaskier works his jaw, trying to organize his thoughts, but they kept running away from him. He wanted to fight, he wanted to have this conversation, he wanted to know why Geralt tried to have this conversation in the first place, but Geralt wouldn’t even look at him. Something must have happened, something from last night he couldn’t remember, something Geralt wouldn’t be willing to tell him about at all. It seemed that Geralt would just be feeling however he’s feeling until he finally decides to forgive Jaskier for whatever it was that had happened and it wasn’t fair. 

When morning comes Jaskier follows, lute in hand. He allows his chord progressions to carry his mind somewhere far away, where he doesn’t have to think or fill the silence, or even notice it at all. He follows Geralt on foot, further back, so that if Geralt wanted to see him he’d have to turn around to do so, a habit he has to let Geralt know when he’s grumpy. He liked to notice when Geralt was thinking about him, checking in on him, making sure he was still there. Only he’s not grumpy this time, he’s hurt.

He’s hurt, but he follows. 

A few weeks later and things are still strained between them. Geralt has only seemed to get increasingly more grumpy as time passed. Jaskier’s given up on talking to him, just sitting at the fires silently, following him on his horse quietly, seething with his quiet rage. He’s angry with Geralt for refusing to speak with him, but he’s even angrier with himself for taking this treatment. The weight he feels pressing him down only gets heavier. He hates that he feels this at all, hates that it’s Geralt’s fault for causing it, hates that he knows it happened when he was drunk but still is no closer to discovering what it is that he needs to apologize for. He hates that he’s so desperate to apologize. He hates that he’s still here, walking by his side. 

“I know this area.” Jaskier looks up from across the fire to see Geralt looking around their campsite, his eyebrows gently knitted together. His voice is gentle, almost surprised. 

“Oh? Have we been here before?” Jaskier looks around too, trying to see what Geralt was seeing, but it just looked the same as everywhere else. He couldn’t help the spring of hope in his chest, trying to milk this interaction for an opportunity to reconnect with Geralt. Each little interaction like this that wasn’t thrummed with aggression gave Jaskier a twinge of hope that things would start to go back to normal between them. Where he could sit next to him, touch their bodies together, make him laugh, make him smile, without Geralt’s wincing, his body tensing, his jaw locking, walking away from him.

He hates the way he feels, full of hope, desperate to be able to reach out and touch his friend again.

“No, We’ve never been here before, not together.” Jaskier watches Geralt as he returns to his meal, waiting to see if he’ll say anything more. His heart flutters at the sight of Geralt in the firelight. He hopes. He hates that he hopes.

“Is there anything special about this place?” He tries to control his tone, tries to force it into something easy, conversational. 

“A lake.” 

“Oh? Well, that sounds lovely! We can go for a little swim, do a little fishing? It’s been a moment since we’ve had fish.” Geralt doesn’t even look up at him and Jaskier swallows his words. He wants to fill the silence, his hands itch to do so, but he doesn’t want to press this moment too hard. Doesn’t want to force Geralt back into his little emotional cave. He bites his tongue and tries to force the remainder of his meal down his gullet. He hasn’t been truly hungry since he’s found himself in this mess, but he knows he can’t skip his meals if he wants to be able to continue keeping up with Geralt. He begins to wonder if he should just pack up and go, try again next season. 

“Fuck!” Jaskier turns around to see Geralt straightening out his net once more. He’d been the only one that seemed interested in going for a swim and taking this as a chance to bathe. He’d been in this lake for almost an hour now and not once did he feel the sensation of a fish brushing against his skin, or see the rippling of them kissing the surface of the water. 

He wades over to him, having to hop away from the net when Geralt tosses it back without looking out for Jaskier. He shoots him a sharp look but continues his approach, hopping onto a towel he’s let out for this reason. He doesn’t bother with modesty, they’ve traveled together for too long now for him to keep up with the façade of it. He just picks up another towel and begins to dry himself off, watching Geralt as he drags the net in once more. 

“Geralt, I don’t think there are any fish in this lake.” 

“I’m not fishing.” Jaskier nods, watching him walk to a different section of the lake to just toss it in once more. 

“Right, clearly.” Jaskier looks around for where he’d tossed his clothes, and listened to Geralt drudge up his net. “So, what are you doing, then?” 

Jaskier watches Geralt work his jaw as he pulls the net up, inch by inch. Eventually Geralt’s shoulders drop and he lets out a silent huff, his eyes suddenly so sad it makes Jaskier straighten his back. He realizes that this is actually a lot more important than a simple moment of Geralt loosing his marbles for an hour or two. Jaskier pauses in tucking in his chemise to really look at Geralt, really see the man. He looks harried, exhausted, and stressed. Jaskier can see the moment that Geralt decides against opening his mouth and finally fucking talking to him. Jaskier walks over to him, drawn to him, suddenly and sincerely concerned. 

“Geralt? What’s wrong?” He sees the way Geralt flinches when he reaches his hand out to touch his arm and it makes him feel like he’s been slapped. He balls his hand into a fist, trying to swallow down the rejection, but returns it to his side. “Talk to me Geralt. Please.” Geralt turns to look at him then, and he can see the full force of Geralt’s exhaustion. He looks so small in this moment, and Jaskier wants to tuck his face into his shoulder, card his finger through his hair, comfort him. But he can’t, he isn’t allowed and he knows that and for one moment Jaskier is filled with rage that he’s being denied the chance to comfort his friend. 

“I can’t sleep.” Jaskier nods at that, completely confused now. Perhaps this was just Geralt loosing his marbles for an hour or two afterall. 

“Okay, you can’t sleep. And so, you’re not fishing about it. Completely sensible Geralt. Not at all alarming.” Jaskier wishes he’d be better at controlling the bitterness in his voice, the anger, but Geralt has well earned it he thinks. He just wants his friend to fucking talk to him. 

“I’m looking for a Djinn.” 

“Wha-Geralt! A Djinn? Like, like a fucking genie? Trapped in a bottle for centuries, angry as all hell about it, with the banned majicks? That kind of a Djinn?” 

Geralt ruffles at that, clearly annoyed by the question. “Yes, Jaskier, that kind of Djinn.” 

“We could just get you a sleeping potion, you carry them with you all the time. I’ve seen them in your bags,-”

“They stopped working and I can’t fucking sleep!” Geralt gathers up his net and storms off, and honestly? Jaskier is getting tired of this shit. Jaskier allows his anger to win out the emotional war in his chest, he’s been kind enough for weeks. Anger is a much easier emotion to deal with, one that Geralt tends to respond better to. Jaskier follows him, finger pointed at him angrily, swinging it around to emphasize his emotion. 

“Y’know, Geralt, have you ever considered that the reason you can’t fucking sleep is because, maybe, just maybe, you feel guilty for being such an asshole? I mean, it’s been weeks now and you still can’t even look me in the eye for longer than three seconds. It’s like you want everyone around you to- What is that?” Geralt’s got a fucking bottle in his hand. “Geralt, what is that?” 

“It’s a witch’s seal.” In a second Jaskier remembers every story he’s heard or read about Djinns, their anger, their twisting of intentions, all the good reasons they’ve been banned. This is a terrible fucking idea. He yanks it, trying to pull it out of Geralt’s grasp. 

“Jaskier!” 

“Tell me what’s really going on, and I’ll give it back.” Geralt’s jaw is tight, shoulders high and squared, but Jaskier looks him firmly in the eye. He’s tired of this angry, silent, brutish asshole who flinches when he touches him now. It’s breaking his heart. “Tell me what I did to make you so pissy.” He shakes the bottle for emphasis.

“Jaskier,” he sounds exhausted, he looks away from Jaskier’s stare, but he doesn’t move. Jaskier tugs on the bottle once more, to regain Geralt’s attention, but it only results in a tug of war contest. Anger was clearly the easier emotion for them both here. 

“Jaskier, stop!” 

The lid pops off. They both look around, confused, waiting. 

“Well, bit of an anti climax.” He’s flooded with relief. 

Of course his luck doesn’t last too much longer. He can smell the sulfur mixing into the air around them, making it heavy, humid. It gets darker and it suddenly sounds like there’s going to be a storm. Damn this whole day to the gods, this is such a fucking nightmare. Geralt may have opened the bottle but he’s still holding it, there’s every chance that he’s the master here. If he can burn through all three wishes before Geralt has the chance to make some stupid wish for sleep then they’ll probably be able to make it out of this situation without the Djinn causing anything too horrible.

“Djinn, I have freed thee, and as of this day, I am thy Lord! Firstly, may Valdo Marx, the troubadour of Cidaris, be struck down with apoplexy, and die. Secondly, I would like to drink my fill and never suffer another hangover ever again. Thirdly,” Geralt grabs a hold of his doublet and yanks him back, wrapping his hand around his mouth and growling into his ear.

“Jaskier, stop. There are only three wishes.” Jaskier licks at his hand, petty and childish, and then bites down when Geralt doesn’t try to yank his hand away, allowing him the chance to both free himself of Geralt’s hold and get a petty revenge. 

“Oh, yes, Geralt. The man who spends all his time treating his friends like shit because he can’t fucking think about anyone but himself, and what he wants, of fucking course he’s throwing a hissy fit about how doesn’t get all three wishes all to himself!” He’s yelling, almost screaming, rage just coursing through his veins, making him shake. He’s earned the right to scream. “So tell me, Geralt, you’ve got one wish left, what do you fucking want?” He throws the bottle on the ground for emphasis and he likes the way it makes Geralt’s nostrils flare angrily.

“I just want some fucking peace!” One minute Jaskier was standing, staring at Geralt, thrumming with rage, and then, suddenly, he’s pressed up against a tree. He blinks, trying to make sense of what he’s experiencing. There’s something pressed against his throat and shooting pain down his entire body. It feels like his body is thrumming with electricity, and the force wrapped around his throat is getting tighter and tighter. He tries to suck in his breath but it’s difficult. He’s being suffocated. 

“Ger, geralt,” He’s flailing, trying to slap at whatever it is wrapped around his neck, trying to force air down into his lungs. He lets out a high pitched whine, vaguely sounding like the consonant ‘G’. Thankfully Geralt hears him, looking up from his place kneeled onto the ground, and dropping the pieces of that stupid fucking bottle to use some of his fancy witcher magic he has to push the invisible entity away from him. Jaskier falls to the ground and tries to breathe again. 

Jaskier tries to take in a deep breath but he still can’t. There’s nothing holding him against a tree, or wrapping around his throat, but he still can’t breathe. Jaskier feels the ice cold sensation of fear pouring into his veins, making his hands shake. He should be able to breathe now and he can’t. He can still feel the electric thrum in his body, he feels like his throat is swelling, he’s scared, he tries to breathe. His breaths are high pitched whines and he’s trying not to panic. He knows panicking won’t help, would actually just make things worse, but it’s hard to control it when he can’t fucking breathe. 

He can suddenly taste the sharp, coppery pang on his tongue of blood. He coughs, sputtering, blood pouring out of his mouth. He starts flailing, trying to get Geralt’s attention, fully giving over to his need to panic. He lets out another ‘g’ toned whine, his heart pounding. He paws at Geralt, pulling his shirt, terrified as more blood pools down his chin. 

“Jaskier! Jaskier?” Geralts hands are on him, pulling at him, trying to get a view of what’s happening at his neck. Jaskier tries to breathe, his lungs are starting to ache for a good, deep breath, and he can feel tears springing to his eyes, shaking harder than a leaf. All this because he just wanted to prevent Geralt from making some stupid wish that would’ve likely put him in a coma? Gods, he was so stupid, why couldn’t he have just walked away once he realized what Geralt was doing? 

But Geralt’s looking at him, touching him, clearly scared for him. Gods, his hands on him are so comforting, despite his burning lungs, the blood pouring out of his mouth. The look Geralt gives him, care, affection, worry, regret. Jaskier doesn’t regret it he knows that he’s made the right choices. 

This love will kill him. 

Geralt picks him up like it’s easy, like he weighs nothing, and carries him over to Roach. Geralt’s arms are wrapped around him again, keeping him from falling as they gallop off, gods knows where. He can feel Geralt breathing and Jaskier tries to match it, eyesight going dark, head getting dizzy. He’s going to pass out. He’s terrified. Gods he hopes Geralt will fix this before he dies. He doesn’t want to die.

“I’m sorry, Jaskier.” It’s nothing more than a whisper, Geralt’s lips brushing his ear because of how close they are, he’s so dizzy that he’s not even certain if Geralt actually said it or if he’s just beginning to hallucinate from a lack of oxygen. He isn’t sure how much time has passed as they ride up to a tent. He’s still lightheaded, fighting off unconsciousness. Geralt pulls Jaskier down, catching him in his arms like a new bride and carries him inside. Jaskier is surrounded by the comforting scent of leather, horse, musk, and his own orange peel and rosemary soap. 

“Please, help my friend. He’s been attacked by a Djinn.” Geralt plops Jaskier down on the cot, letting his strange man touch him. Jaskier flails for him, trying to keep at least one hand on Geralt at all times, terrified he’ll leave. The second he manages to grab a hold of his shirt he yanks, desperate to keep him close. His vision is narrowing, he can barely hear what this man is saying, but he does hear him clear as day when he says he might fucking die.

“Fuck! Geralt, no!” He tries to turn to see him and he’d be hyperventilating if he could actually breathe. Geralt touches him, one hand on his shoulder, another on the back of his neck. Geralt’s hands squeeze into his skin, almost hard enough to bruise, and it helps to calm him some. He’s in enough pain right now that it doesn’t hurt at all, just makes him feel like Geralt is just as terrified as he is, which is comforting for some insane reason. 

“Don’t worry Jaskier, I won’t let that happen.” Jaskier is shaking, and his vision is bleary, he can feel cool tears running down his cheeks. Then the medic man is tilting his chin up and trying to get him to drink something. It tastes like piss but he tries to take it down, despite the fact that his throat is so swollen he can barely breathe, much less swallow. The medic man tilts it slowly, patiently, taking care to keep any of it from pouring down Jaskier’s chin. 

It works quickly, making his throat tingle, blooming with a strange heat in his chest. It doesn’t make it any easier to breathe but it does help him feel less panicked. It spreads throughout his body, making him warm, and heavy, similar to being drunk. He’s getting high. Whatever he’s been made to drink is getting him high. He tries to let out a bitter laugh but it just ends up coming out as another bloody cough. His eyes flutter and his vision swirls. 

And then, suddenly, he’s in Geralt’s arms again. His body feels full of air, he’s no longer crying or scared, just completely out of it, and in Geralt’s arms. He dozes in and out of consciousness, the strong gallop of Roach underneath him, carrying him off to gods know where. He’s safe. He’s going to be safe. 

He’s in hell. 

There’s beautiful men and women, all around him, fucking. They’re fucking! There’s so much skin, the room smells like sex, he’s been thrown from Geralt’s arms into the laps of two people, fully naked, beautiful, and caressing him. Whatever wonderful piss flavored potion the medic man had poured down his throat is slowly beginning to fade, and he’s slowly becoming aware of the sensation of pain, like a limb that had fallen asleep from a strange position and the blood slowly returning to it. 

He’s smack in the middle of an orgy and he’s in pain and he can barely breathe and he’s covered in his own blood. 

He’s being punished for something. 

He slips out of consciousness again. 

Jaskier wakes up slowly. He feels warm, comfortable, safe. Geralt, where is Geralt? 

He breathes in easily and his relief washes over him, thank the gods. Jaskier sits up on his elbows and looks around, completely at a loss for where he is. There’s a beautiful woman sitting on the edge of the bed who hasn’t seemed to notice him waking up just yet. She’s uncomfortably, inhumanely still. Her skin is beautiful, perfect, tanned. Jaskier feels a something twist in his gut that tells him he should leave. 

“Oh, hey, um. Not to be untoward or anything, but uh. I mean, did we?” She turns to look at him and he’s stunned by her violet eyes. She’s gorgeous, more like a painting than a human, and she looks pissed. She doesn’t actually have an expression on her face but Jaskier can feel her rage. 

Holy shit she is terrifying. 

Jaskier scrambles to get away from her when she moves towards him. He jumps off the bed, hands up in the symbol of ‘peace, please don’t harm me’, but she continues her terrifying advance. 

“How’s your throat?” Oh, Melitele’s tits, this is why he’s not in pain anymore? Geralt left him alone with a witch? Damn this all to the gods, he’s having the worst day. He spies his boots on the floor and goes to put them on, readying to run out screaming.

“Well, thank you so much for the bit of help you’ve given me, but ah. Ah, it seems I think I’ve really outstayed my welcome here,” she walks towards him and he bounces backwards, considering running off with only one boot. 

“Perhaps you should try a few bars? Make sure it’s healed properly.” And then he’s slammed into the wall without anyone touching him and he’s very, very scared. Where is Geralt when he really needs him? He shakily tries to do as she asks before she slams a hand onto his cock, cruelly, and he yelps, only to realize there’s a knife against his throat. Why bother healing his throat if she’s just going to slit it open? “Make. A. Wish.” Where is he? Is he still asleep? What nightmare universe is he in right now? 

“A wish? What are you on about? A wish for wh- Ah! Ah, ah uh, a wish, a wish, let me think! I’m thinking, I’m thinking.” She’s pressing the knife into his neck and squeezing his poor cock. This woman might just pinch it off. She huffs angrily, tossing him into the furniture and goes to her creepy candle circle, looking all the more crazed for it. He tries to get to his feet but he’s being pressed into this floor, and whatever is holding him down is getting heavier and heavier.

“Make your wish, bard! Now!” 

“Uh, fine, okay, yes, I wish very much to leave this place and never come back!” And then the weight pressing him into the floor dissipates and she begins chanting. Whatever she’s doing is genuinely terrifying, he can see a shadow of something crawling around on the ceiling. He watches her, just for a moment, feeling a twist of worry in his gut. Whatever she’s doing she’s going to really end up hurting herself. 

He’s spent too much time with Geralt, this woman held a knife to his throat and threatened the safety of his cock, she’s clearly an intelligent, full grown woman, she’s made her choices. He runs. 

And then, blessings from the gods, it’s Geralt. All the tension in his body melts away, he’s safe. “Oh, thank the gods, Geralt. I might live to see another day. We need to go! Where the fuck did you bring me?” He walks off, away from the house, trying to catch his breath. 

“Jaskier, you’re okay.” He sounds relieved and he turns to look at him, he looks like he’s been through just as rough and interesting a day as he has. 

“Well, I’m glad to hear you give a shit.” He can see Geralt wince a little at the barb, and it makes him feel guilty.

“Don’t make assumptions. What happened?” Jaskier turns around, walking backwards to fully face Geralt as he gets into this story.

“Well, I was having a lovely dream, an orgy, Geralt. Beautiful bodies, surrounding me from all angles. It’s glorious. The room even smells of sex. But when I wake up I’m all alone in this giant bed with just one beautiful woman and she’s absolutely terrifying. Beautiful, yes, but no where near as enjoyable as the dream.” That seemed to make Geralt chuckle some, the bastard. “She had a sort of bottle shape drawn onto her stomach and a terrifying shrine of candles and then she starts chanting, and yelling for me to make a wish? And then, Geralt?” Geralt has stopped moving, looking back at the house Jaskier’s been trying to get away from. 

“She wants to be the vessel.” Oh gods, is this Djinn thing still happening? Jaskier is watching the gears turn in Geralt’s head and he can read exactly what’s going on in there as if he had it projected onto his forehead. “She wants to become more powerful, but she’ll die.” 

“Oh, ho ho, Geralt, I swear to the gods, don’t you fucking do this!” Geralt starts walking away, back to the house, and Jaskier follows, because of course he does. He knows exactly what Geralt’s about to do but he still really wishes he wouldn’t. 

“Are you, perhaps, short of a marble? She’s a fully grown woman, Geralt, she can make her own terrible decisions, let’s just go!” 

“She saved your life, Jaskier. I can’t just let her die.” Jaskier lets out a small shout, furious, watching him just stroll right back into the den of an insane witch with a death wish. 

“Oh, of course, Geralt, the first person you decide to give a shit about other than yourself and it’s a half-crazed woman, desperate for power, and someone who threatened to pinch my cock off with her bare hands!” Geralt’s already inside by the time he’s done yelling but he isn’t finished so he just raises his voice and keeps going. “Of course you’d rather go after an insane witch then just fucking talk to me!” He resorts to pacing, furious, waiting for Geralt to come back out. 

The longer it takes the more worried he becomes, imaging all the different ways she could harm him. All the different ways the Djinn itself could harm him. He’d been so mean, Geralt had been so mean, they’d both been so mean to eachother. He sat down, remorseful, wallowing in his shame. 

How did things get so messy. 

He never should’ve kissed him. He buries his face in his hands, trying to rub out all his guilt and exhaustion. This has been the worst season he’s traveled with Geralt. Maybe he should just cut this year short, go back to Oxenfurt and take up on their offer to lecture. Give himself time to heal, time to forget, time to swallow all his longing back down. 

“You sound mad.” 

“Oh, no, Geralt. Why would I be mad? You were fucking an insane she-witch while I spent twenty minutes thinking you were dead. Why would I be mad about that?” Geralt tossed another log into the fire and glowered at him. It was sunset when Geralt strolled out from the manor, they’d mounted Roach, together, and they’d galloped off until the town was far behind them. It was torture, resting against Geralt’s chest, smelling the sex on his skin. Having a million questions swirling in his head and not even the soothing weight of his lute in his hands to ease the anxiety building in his body. 

“I already apologized for that Jaskier.” Maybe it was a shite lay, maybe that’s why they’d left that town as quickly possible. Jaskier knows it’s just wishful thinking, but he revels in the idea anyway. It comforts him.

“Well, I’m still mad about it.” Jaskier’s plucking at his lute, trying to distract himself. His mind is blank, his tone is neutral, he can’t bring himself to look at Geralt. Why did he stay? Why does he always stay? Sooner or later he was going to have to leave, this weight on his chest was too much, too heavy, too constant. 

He tries to banish the image of Geralt and the witch coupling, but it haunts him. He’s felt Geralt’s lips against his own, he’s experienced the the sensation of Geralt’s hands on his skin, he knows to some degree how it would feel. Watching them caused an overwhelming sea of emotions. They all crashed over him, mixing, swirling, stealing his tongue, robbing him of coherent thought. 

Jaskier laid back on his bedroll, lute still in hand as he plucked away, and stared at the sky. He didn’t know what to make of this, unable to pull up any one thought and handle it without dragging along a hundred others, all weighted down by an incomprehensible mixture of emotions. 

He is tired. He’s tired of running from this, tired of pretending like he’s not suffocating under the weight of this, tired of chasing after someone who doesn’t see him. 

“Do you regret it?”

“Regret what? Bedding her?” 

“Kissing me.” Jaskier says it in a whisper, like saying it steals his breath. He closes his eyes, incapable of watching the way the world around him changes as he admits to it, to his want. He can hear Geralt keep up his fiddling with the fire, but Jaskier wishes that Geralt would look at him despite knowing that Geralt won’t. He doesn’t look at him anymore. He’s sick with this, of this, about this. He wishes he could rip this love out of his body so he could be free of it.

“Jaskier.” 

He thinks about the sea. He hasn’t seen it since he was a child, but he can hear the sound of the crashing waves clear as a bell. He should go back soon, get away from this heartache, give himself time to parse this out. The sight of the moon so large in the sky, bright almost as the sun, reflected in the never still waters stole his breath that day. He’s been haunted by the memory ever since. He misses it like he would miss a limb. It would be a better escape than Oxenfurt.

“Jaskier, this has nothing to do with you. She was going to die.” Jaskier’s hands still on his lute as something begins to dawn to him. When he opens his eyes he almost expects to see a second moon, he feels like he’s in another world. It can’t be. He must be loosing his sanity. He sits up, setting his instrument aside, and looks directly at Geralt. He feels hallowed out, empty. His voice waivers, and it reveals the knowing sinking in his chest.

“What did you wish for?” Geralt’s knuckles go white around the branch he was holding and he snaps it in two pieces. He won’t meet Jaskier’s gaze. Geralt tosses the smaller piece into the flames and this continued inattention makes Jaskier feels scarily calm. He starts to breathe quicker, and his vision begins to blur. “Geralt, what.” His voice sounds wet, his throat feels like it’s tightening up, and his hands start to shake. “What did you wish for?” 

“She was going to die.” Geralt glances at him, meeting his gaze for just a moment-a warning-, and he looks murderous. Geralt’s never been a fan of Jaskier pushing his buttons, but this seems to be a particularly sore subject already.

“I know that Geralt, I heard you the first fucking time. What. Did. You. Wish. For.” Jaskier can’t help the hysteria rising in him, he’s yelling and he’s not sure why. He is overwhelmed by his need to know. Geralt stands up, throwing his log into the ground next to fire so hard it kicks up dirt. He levels a momentary glare at Jaskier before he turns to leave. Jaskier presses it, chasing after him, can’t stop himself from following, even now. “Tell me Geralt! What the fuck did you-”

Geralt’s spins and finally, finally, looks at him, really looks at him, and he looks like he wants to tear into his skin and rip him apart with his teeth. He looks desperate for Jaskier to shut up. “I bound our destinies, Jaskier! I tied her life to mine.” Geralt’s staring right at him with a look on his face like he’s challenging Jaskier, asking him if he’s happy, if he’s satisfied, if he’s gotten what he’d wanted. He looks like he knew it would hurt and now he wants to see just how much it had.

Jaskier feels like he’s been punched in the gut, stumbles back a few steps, suddenly completely off balance. He can feel a few tears fall from his eyes as the shock of it washes over him. 

“Why? Why would you do that? You don’t even believe…” There could have been a thousand different ways to fix that problem but he chose the one way that would keep this woman in his life. It’s irrational, he knows it is, but it hurts. He feels completely rejected. 

“Well, perhaps she won’t go off laughing and dancing about how easy it is to leave her loves behind.” So that’s what this was about? All this time spent angry with one another, all this time spent refusing to look at him? It was just Geralt being hurt, taking offense, seeing none of Jaskier’s love and all of his flaws. Jaskier almost wants to laugh as his mouth fills with bitterness. 

“Oh, Geralt. I thought after all these years you’d know me better than that.” Jaskier swipes at his eyes, brokenhearted. He turns away from him, suddenly wishing that Geralt wouldn’t look at him anymore. Geralt’s eyes were wide, cruel, and Jaskier hated how it made him feel flayed open, vulnerable, and found wanting. 

“She was there, and she was going to die, and I all I could think about was you.” Geralt says it quietly, almost like an apology. Jaskier can’t resist giving into his bitterness, his anger. He wants to lash out just as much, cut just as deep. 

“Well, Geralt, when I’m dead and you’re stuck with some insane woman you tied yourself to as a five minute anniversary gift, which will you regret more? Sounds like a shit plan to me.” Jaskier wanted that so sound angry, jealous, pompous, haughty, anything other the sad and desperate way it comes out.

“You’re human Jaskier. That,” Geralt hesitates, breathing loud, clearly frustrated, “scares me.” Jaskier is surprised by how scared he does sound, how sincere. He’s been waiting for Geralt to talk to him for weeks now, but suddenly he doesn’t want it. He’s exhausted. He’s hurt. He wants to leave, he wants to get shitfaced, he wants to run from this. He can feel Geralt getting closer, his footsteps as silent as ever, but his scent gets stronger, his back gets warmer. It makes him wince, anxiety suddenly flooding through him. He’s scared that the second Geralt touches him he’ll forgive him. He’ll be so overwhelmed by how much he wants to be here, by Geralt’s side, that he won’t be able to hold onto his anger.

“Gods, Geralt. I’ve been here for years.” Jaskier wishes he’d been able to fall in love with someone else, anyone else, a man who wouldn’t have been so scared by his love that he’d run off and tie his life to another the first chance he could. He felt like a fool. This love made a fool of him. 

Geralt touches his arm, gentle, soft, warm. 

“I regret it, Geralt. I regret all of it.” Still bitter, still angry, but honest. He wants to push Geralt away but he can’t. He’s fucking weak. And he’s spent years now silently wanting. Geralt presses their bodies flush. Jaskier tries to keep his breath steady, tries not to turn into his arms, hide himself there in Geralt’s broad chest. He’s shaking he’s so scared, incapable of running away, and hating himself for it. He never would have allowed any of his previous lovers to treat him like this. Use him, yes. But reject him? Time and time again, for no better reason than their own cowardice?

“I didn’t know. I thought what you felt for me was the same fleeting feeling you have for everyone else.” Geralt’s nose traces Jaskier’s neck. “How could I have known?” He mumbles into his skin, the feeling of his lips forming the shapes of his words on Jaskier’s skin making him shudder. Jaskier can feel the movements of Geralt’s mouth all the way in his toes. Like electricity, thrumming through his entire body. 

“You could’ve fucking asked.” Geralt’s hands circle around his waist, pulling him closer, holding him tight. Jaskier hated how allowing Geralt to touch him, finally touch him, made him feel so stupid.

“You’re my only friend, Jaskier.” Jaskier bites his lip. He’s shaking under the weight of years of yearning. Geralt’s scent robs him of his senses, lulls him, captures him, tempts him. His broad chest pressed against his back, his thick and powerful arms wrapped around his waist makes him feel like prey as he relaxes into his touch anyway. Lets himself be held, be caught. 

“You’ve got a shite way of showing it Geralt.”


	4. interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gosh guys, thank you all so much for your amazing comments! They really keep my spirits high enough to continue churning this out at a quick pace! 
> 
> So there's only going to be one more chapter. This fic really didn't have a set end goal or any kind of general storyline but I think it's shaping up to something really beautiful and I'm pretty proud of it. 
> 
> I know the theme of this series has been kinda lost these past two chapters but don't worry it returns full force in the last one. Enjoy! And again thank you so much for all the support <3

“You’re my only friend, Jaskier.” Jaskier bites his lip. He’s shaking under the weight of years of yearning. Geralt’s scent robs him of his senses, lulls him, captures him, tempts him. His broad chest pressed against his back, his thick and powerful arms wrapped around his waist makes him feel like prey but he relaxes into his touch anyway. Lets himself be held, be caught. 

“You’ve got a shite way of showing it Geralt.” Geralt presses a gentle kiss to Jaskier’s neck and his body shivers, lust blooming despite the pain. Jaskier grinds his teeth, desperate to pull away but Geralt’s hand opens up on his stomach, stilling him. His other hand snakes around him, presses hard into his hip, enough to hurt, and he feels an almost painful shot of lust spark deep in his belly. Jaskier unfolds his arms and wraps his hand around Geralt’s head, holding him into his neck, inviting more. His vision is still blurred, he lets out out a heavy sigh as more tears roll slowly down his cheeks, revels in the way Geralt’s mouth on his skin makes his stomach flip. 

It’s too easy to let Geralt kiss away this argument, this pain. It feels better to let Geralt twist him in his arms, press their chests together, grind his hips against Jaskier’s, smear the tears on Jaskier’s cheek with his thumbs, and kiss him. Hungry. Keening. Desperate. So fucking cruel. Geralt steals the breath from Jaskier’s lungs and he lets him. Jaskier gives into this, unable to fight, unwilling to fight. He lets Geralt take whatever he wants, lets him pull his shirt out from his breeches, lets him paw at the hot, sweaty flesh of his stomach, his chest, brushing a thumb over his nipple. Jaskier gasps into his mouth and lets himself be dragged down to their bedroll. Jaskier has wanted Geralt’s hands on his skin for so long that just this, just the deep, desperate, breathy, endless kiss and the brush of blunt nails on his sides are enough to wash away every thought from his mind. He allows himself to be dragged down into this, easy, simple wanting. Jaskier wraps his hands into Geralt’s hair, refusing to allow him to take his lips anywhere else, moaning into them when he bites at him, gasping with each rut of their cocks together. He doesn’t want to think, doesn’t want to feel, doesn’t want this moment to ever end. He lets the feeling of Geralt’s solid weight on top of him drown out all the voices in the back of his head screaming at him to stop this. 

Jaskier opens his eyes, confused, to see why Geralt sits up. Geralt removes his own shirt, his pupils blown wide, nothing left but a thin ring of molten gold and stares him, unwavering, unblinking, completely still. Jaskier can feel his stare like a weight pressing down on him. He lets out a groan of permission when Geralt rucks up Jaskier’s chemise, pooling it around his neck, and pawing at his bare skin. He lets out a quiet growl at the way Jaskier arches up into the touch. Jaskier lets out a small whine, pleading Geralt to come back down here and fuck him, moaning with approval when Geralt finally leans back down to him. Jaskier closes his eyes and tries to solely focus on Geralt’s lips mouthing at his sternum, licking, biting gently, slowly traveling lower and lower to his navel. He knows what this is, knows exactly what’s happening and he doesn’t want to face it. He’d stopped himself once from doing this, from using Geralt as an escape, but when Geralt was the one using him as an escape? Well, that was just par for the course with his lovers. 

Jaskier’s hands circle down to his shoulders, digs his nails in as Geralt’s hands circle down to his thighs, pushes them apart. Jaskier can feel Geralt slot inbetween his legs, rutting into the ground and grunting when his cock gets some type of friction, all while he mouths at Jaskier’s cock over his pants. Jaskier lets out a strangled, surprised moan, and digs his nails even deeper into Geralt’s skin. He has a shocking thought, just a flash of an impulse, of tearing into Geralt’s skin deep enough to cut. He wants to see his blood, to watch him bleed, to cause little rivulets to trickle down from crescent shaped marks. It passes from his mind just as quickly as it came but it sparks something in his gut, something that fills him with shame.

“Geralt, please.” He looks down to watch Geralt mouthing his cock, looking directly into his eyes. He doesn’t know if he’s asking him to stop or hurry up, he doesn’t allow himself to focus on that, to choose. It makes tears spring to his eyes once more and he closes them against the sight, too beautiful, too painful to watch it any longer. He lifts his hips as Geralt works his pants open, letting him pull them down, hissing at the sensation of Geralt’s hands on his ass, kneading his muscle, and Geralt bites down on his hip, rough. It sends a sharp, beautiful, thrum of desire down Jaskier’s spine, flooding his head, making him moan, loud, unashamed. 

“Please.” It’s strangled, barely more than a whisper. Self hate mixes in his gut with his lust as he howls when Geralt takes the head of his cock in his mouth. He can’t resist this, can’t deny himself this, no matter how much he knows he should. He should’ve run the second Geralt touched him. He may be in Geralt’s arms right now but just hours ago he was in the arms of someone else. Someone he’d run to to get away from him. He curled his hand into Geralt’s hair and pulled, hard, while he arched his back and thrust his hips forward, forcing himself down Geralt’s throat. Geralt sputters at it and uses his hips to push him down into the ground hard enough it hurts, his fingers digging in so deep it will leave nasty bruises. Jaskier moans and that feeling of shame shoots through him once more. Oh. Oh.

He wants this to hurt. He likes it.

Geralt growls, shoots an animalistic glare at him before returning his mouth to Jaskier’s cock. This feels right, for the first time since this has started, the shooting pain from his hips making his mind blissfully empty. Jaskier tries to move his hips, tries to continue fucking his throat. Jaskier curls his hands into Geralt’s hair and pushes him down, tries to force him to choke on his length, trying to force him to take him to the root. He wants to push Geralt, force him to be rough with him, force him to violence. If he’s going to be used then he sure as shit wants to feel it. If he’s going to be nothing more than a pity fuck for the man he’s loved for years, then he’s certainly going to bear the bruises of it. 

Geralt wraps his hands around Jaskier’s hips and pushes. Jaskier lets out a high pitched whine at the sudden cool air on his drool covered cock. Geralt grinds his face into the sensitive spot where Jaskier’s thigh meets his waist and bites down hard, hard enough that Jaskier worries, just for a moment, that he might have broken the skin. The pain floods his body, mixes in with his lust, makes him see stars behind his eyelids, makes him come. Jaskier lets out a scream as he comes, it’s the most intense orgasm he’s ever fucking had, and he buries Geralt’s face into the bite mark, hisses with every lick of his tongue. He rides out his orgasm like this, Geralt nuzzling the area he’s bitten, his hands somehow holding him even tighter around the hips. Something breaks in his chest, something he’d been desperate to ignore for years now. Jaskier sobs.

“Fuck me, Geralt, please, please.” Jaskier doesn’t want this to end, just keeps begging Geralt, not ready to face what he’s done, what he’s allowed to happen. “Please, please, please.” Tears run down his cheeks, he sounds crazed, but he doesn’t stop begging. “Please, please.” He wants to fall asleep exhausted, covered in bruises and bite marks and come, and he doesn’t want to ever have to deal with any of this fucking mess. “Fuck me, Geralt, Geralt, please.”

He gasps at the sensation of Geralt’s finger teasing his hole, shocked that his hand has clearly been oiled up. When had he gotten a chance to do that? His mind empties out when Geralt pushes in, rough, too quick, all the way down to the first knuckle. It makes Jaskier howl, makes his body relax under a shocking wave of relief. It’s been a long time since Jaskier has let anyone fill him up like this, and Geralt is rough, impatient, fucking him just the side of too quickly. It’s exactly what he wants. He focuses on how each soft, open mouthed, wet kiss Geralt presses into his stomach makes his body shake with pleasure. 

He sucks in a shocked gasp when Geralt introduces another finger already. Geralt crawls up his body, peppering kisses all over his body, smearing his come all over their bodies with the movement. Jaskier melts at the sensation of Geralt’s tongue against his neck, tilts his head down to capture his mouth. He relaxes more and more with each kiss, his lust growing with each rough fuck of Geralt’s fingers inside him. Geralt’s free hand slides around his throat and just holds him there, gentle, strong. Jaskier whines, licking his tongue into Geralt’s mouth and wraps his hand around Geralt’s wrist and pushes Geralt’s hand against his throat. Geralt fucks him harder, faster, and growls as his hand squeezes around his neck. It makes Jaskier shake, makes him gasp, lust floods his body, makes him rock down into each thrust of Geralt’s fingers. His sobs still as the breath is stolen from his lungs, and he’s so focused on the beautiful burn of Geralt’s fingers and trying to force air past Geralt’s beautiful hand that he’s terrified he’ll come again, already, so soon.

He feels full, over heated, shaking, and so fucking miserable. He’s in love and it’s never hurt this much, never overwhelmed him like this, never stole his breath, his sanity. He never thought that love could turn him into this.

Time doesn’t exist anymore. He feels like he’s been here for an eternity, Geralt’s fingers buried inside him, pressing him open. By the time he has four fingers in him he’s sobbing, begging Geralt not to stop inbetween each kiss, gasping out each time Geralt’s hold over his neck slackens to allow him a deep breath. He’s completely unaware of anything more than the sensation of being fucking open, of Geralt’s solid body pressing him further and further into the ground. He’s crying again, desperate, but Geralt’s blessed hands never once falter, or pause, or lessen. Despite the roughness of his hands, and the tears smeared between them, Geralt’s endless mouth on his is never anything more than gentle, soft, sweet. It’s a stark, shocking contrast from his hands that the gentleness is too much to bear, hurts him more deeply than each fuck of Geralt’s fingers. He begs, an endless litany of don’t stop, please, don’t, fuck me, fuck me, fuck me.

When Geralt finally sinks his cock into him, Jaskier’s trembling like a virgin, desperate, and the hand at his throat is squeezing so tight he can’t breathe at all. Gods, he hopes he holds the bruises from this for weeks. He wraps his arms around Geralt’s shoulders, burying his fingers in his hair once more, scratching at his scalp, lungs starting to ache. Geralt kisses him the whole way through it, but he doesn’t give him a moment to adjust to the fullness of it when he’s sunken down into him to the root. Geralt releases his neck entirely and as Jaskier gasps for air he starts fucking him, short, rough snaps of his hips, too fast, too hard, and absolutely fucking perfect. This is what being used feels like. A calmness settles over Jaskier’s mind and he gives into it completely, relaxes totally into Geralt’s onslaught, buries his face into Geralt’s neck and just holds on for dear life. He finally stops begging, just shuts up completely, reduced to nothing more than gasping and moaning and whining and pawing and shaking. 

When he comes it hurts. Too sensitive, too quick, ripping through his body, making him spasm, making him bear down on Geralt’s cock so tight that each thrust hurts that much more. Geralt growls, and pulls at Jaskier’s hair so his neck is exposed, so he can sink his teeth into his neck, groaning and breathing hard against his skin as he pumps himself into Jaskier even quicker. Jaskier rocks down into each pump of Geralt’s hips, mindless, helpless, and grinds his teeth against the pain of his sensitivity. Jaskier shouts, shocked, when Geralt comes, Geralt’s hands are on his hips and he’s pushing himself as deep as possible inside him. He’s fucking himself through his orgasm, biting down harder with each painful pump. Jaskier gasps through it, holding Geralt close, unwilling to let go of this feeling, to his weight, despite his relief, despite the exhaustion crawling up his spine. Jaskier wonders if he is broken the skin of his shoulder yet, if Geralt’s mouth is full of his blood, if he’ll be marked by this forever, a small circle of a scar. Geralt finally stills, still inside him and making no move to pull out, and gently pulls his mouth away from Jaskier’s neck. It makes Jaskier hiss, it fucking hurts, but Geralt licks at the mark like a dog nursing a wound. It’s oddly relaxing, slow, almost loving. 

Jaskier begins to sob. His body shakes with each gasp, sobbing so hard he’s scared he might split in two, finally giving release to every confusing, overwhelming emotion he’s felt. Geralt makes no move to pull himself out, no move to leave Jaskier’s space, just slowly wraps his hand around his neck and tucks Jaskier into the crook of his shoulder and lazily rubs comforting circles on his thigh. Geralt doesn’t say a single word, just holds him so close he can feel Geralt’s body shaking with his own. Eventually Jaskier’s sobs subside, and he plummets into sleep, still crying, still gasping, utterly surrounded by Geralt, his scent, his warmth, his comfort. He feels safe. 

He doesn’t dream.

He wakes up slowly. His eyes flutter at the bright sun and he lets out a small, pained whine when lifting his arm to shield his eyes causes his body to sing out in pain. Everywhere hurts. He stays still, feeling his body, trying to determine where all this pain is coming from. He thinks on what happened last night. The feel of Geralt pressed against him, taking him apart, swallowing each and every sound. His cheeks burn with shame. He lets his hatred, his anger, his pain, pour over him but he discovers he’s too exhausted to feel it with any of the intensity from the night before. He feels emptied out. There’s a peace that washes over him and he wonders what does this mean? What will change? 

He sits up slowly and realizes he’s still covered in dried come. He grimaces, uncomfortable, and he’s deeply thankful that at some point Geralt pulled his chemise off of him before it had a chance to get stuck to his skin. There is nothing more unpleasant than trying to remove a shirt stuck to dried come on your skin. The blanket pools around his waist as he sits up. There’s a small fire going and Geralt glances up at him from across the flames.

“I’ve made breakfast, if you’re hungry.” Jaskier rubs at his face with both hands, trying to wipe away the dried tears and the sleep. 

“Water.” Soon the water skin is touching his shoulder. Jaskier takes it without looking up, and nearly drains it. The cool water dribbles down his chin, pouring down his chest, and it’s cool, and it helps ease his tension. “Thank you.” He focuses on the way the cool water travels down his throat, cools his chest, pools in his belly. It helps cool his skin down, and he smiles at the simple pleasure. 

“Here.” Geralt hands him a bowl and settles next to him, at an arm’s distance, and continues to stare into the flames. “Jaskier,” he pauses, searching for his thoughts. Jaskier digs in, absolutely starved, and stares at Geralt’s profile, waiting. He looks pained, lost, nervous. Jaskier doesn’t know what he wants Geralt to say, or even if he wants him to say anything at all. He’s peaceful, he’s sore, he’s still in fucking love.

“Jaskier, I’m sorry.” That surprises him. He never expected to hear Geralt say it and now in the span of two days he’s heard him say it twice. He thinks about what that means, what Geralt would feel the need to apologize for, if he wants to forgive it. There was so much Geralt could be trying to apologize for, but Jaskier didn’t care. He forgave it all, he did the second he felt Geralt touch his arm. Jaskier reaches out and places his hand on Geralt’s forearm, earning his direct eye contact, Geralt’s eyebrows furrowed together in a silent worry. 

“Geralt, darling,” he hesitates when he sees Geralt look just as confused as he felt, and takes his time to decide if this is really what he wants to say. “Thank you.” He says it in a whisper, and despite the fact that he’d already forgiven him he still feels something melt in his chest. He smiles at him, soft, small, sincere. “Come here.” He leans forward, tilting his head up towards him, and Geralt follows, slower, uncertain. They kiss slowly, gentle, reassuring. It makes something warm and hopeful bloom in Jaskier’s chest, something fluttering, uncertain, hesitant. He sighs into the kiss, takes it just one step deeper, licking at his lips, moaning softly. Geralt pulls away after a moment, resting their foreheads together, trying to regulate his breathing. 

“What…?” Geralt sounds as deeply confused as Jaskier feels. 

“Not yet. I can’t talk about this yet, please. Give me some time.” Geralt nods against him, pulls away slow. Jaskier squeezes his arm, waiting for Geralt to look to him before he gives him another smile, something encouraging. He needs to time to understand this, how he feels, what he wants, what he’s going to do.

“There’s a river close by, we can get there by midday if we leave soon. Get yourself cleaned up.” Jaskier hums around a mouthful of food, grateful for the simple kindness. He could really use a slow day, a long bath in cool, running waters, a bed at an inn. He wants to spend the day quietly, slowly, not thinking, not talking, nothing. He feels dazed, still exhausted. They get ready slowly, taking their time to gather and pack and dress. His body is covered in bruises, the bite mark on his leg already a deep purple, and the individual indentions of Geralt’s teeth still there, sunken into his skin. Jaskier traces the shape of it, pressing into it to feel a sharp, stinging pain of it. Will his skin hold their shape forever? Seeing it made him bite his lip, feel a trickle of fear for how much he liked it. 

Jaskier stretches and the ache in his body is everywhere. It’s strangely so satisfying. Every step he takes beside Geralt is another reminder of their night together and it feels good. Really fucking good. He lifts his arms above his head and reaches, stretching as long as he can, feeling the sore muscles, the dull pain from the bruises, and he shivers with pleasure. It opens a floodgate of emotion, swirling and confusing, but he ignores it all and just focuses on how pleased he is. He bears the scars of their coupling and it makes him smile with pride. He’s not going to think about it, not going to examine it, not ruin this. Not yet. He thinks that if he could, he’d be purring. 

The water is cold. It makes Jaskier melt, allows him to relax, to feel fully human again. He loves the gentle pull from the water’s current. He gasps, holds the air in his lungs, and dunks under the water. He can feel the river trying to pull him away, can hear the rushing of it. It’s exactly what he needs and he stays in the water until his lungs scream for air. 

Geralt is washing closer to the bank, close to where he has his swords, pretending to not watch him. Jaskier doesn’t know if Geralt will ever let him be inside another body of water alone again, after the rusalka. It makes him smile with the comfort of it, despite the confusing mixture of emotions he feels when he looks at him. He runs his soap over his skin slowly, careful for all the bruises. The painful ache in his chest when he looks at Geralt tells him he still loves, but it’s different now. It aches, but it’s warm, less like a rock in his gut and more now like a hand against his sternum, pressing down gently. He watches Geralt bathe, watches him run his rag over his skin quickly, efficiently, and he brushes his fingers over the bite on his shoulder. Each gentle brush of his fingers sends a thrill of pain, of pleasure down his spine. 

He’s been loving Geralt with the expectation of being rejected, with the hope of being loved in return, but now? He doesn’t care anymore. His love is his own. He’ll love this brute of a man regardless of anything. He knows, suddenly, bitterly, that even if he left his side right now and fell into the arms of a hundred sweeter and much more willing partners he will never be free from this love. He is well and truly ruined. There is nothing in this world that will ever compare to this intoxicating mixture of pain, pleasure, desperation, longing, and satisfaction. He slowly makes his way over to Geralt, watching as he notices, and turns to fully face him. Jaskier presses his body against Geralt’s, wraps one hand around his incredible bicep and the other around his waist. Geralt doesn’t make a single move, barely breathing, just watching Jaskier, patient, willing. Jaskier smiles when he sees the hope in Geralt’s eyes, the hesitancy, and he leans forward and presses his lips to his mouth. It’s gentle, soft, and it takes a long time for Geralt’s hands to touch him back, but when they finally do Jaskier moans. Geralt’s hands hold his face, so gentle, cradling him, and Jaskier can feel Geralt’s cock filling on his thigh. He pulls back, looks into Geralt’s eyes and smiles, content. He can have this at least. 

“We’ll be arriving at a small farming town around nightfall. We can get an inn, you could play.” Geralt speaks softly, carefully, still holding his face close. He looks miserable, but like he’s trying to hide it. “You can stay, if you want to. When I leave. I’ll understand.” Geralt’s hand moves to his chest, resting on his sternum. It’s solid, familiar, warm against his cooled skin. It feels like another rejection, like he’s trying to push Jaskier away without giving him the chance to speak, the chance to say yes, the chance to say no. Jaskier watches his eyes, searching for something, trying to guess at what Geralt really wants. 

Geralt has cooked him so many meals over the years. Has never once galloped off, leaving him alone on the side of the road. He’s even listened to his songs and gone so far as to make a request once or twice. He’s protected him, he’s held him at night when winter began to seep into the ground, he’s listened to his hours of endless rambling. Confusion washes over him. He’s so beautiful. 

“Geralt.” Geralt kisses him. Jaskier’s more than willing to lean into it, unwilling to to name this. Not yet, not yet. If they could spend the rest of their lives in this liminal space between lovers, friends, or strangers, he’d be happy. The second one of them speaks it’ll break around them. A decision will have to made and the chance of losing him is so strong that Jaskier shakes, kisses him back more fiercely and possessively than he’d expected. He trails his hand from Geralt’s bicep to his wrist, pulls his hand away so he can crowd into his space. He gasps when he feels Geralt’s cock against his stomach, fully erect now. He wraps his hand around Geralt’s neck and tilts him to achieve a deeper angle, and wraps his legs around Geralt’s waist. Geralt’s hand wraps around his waist and holds him there, and his hands are shaking. He lets go of Jaskier’s face to grab his ass, and they rut against eachother in the water.

When his fingers enter him again Jaskier grinds into them. It’s way too soon, it hurts, but he’s still loose, and he wants this. He’ll have him again and again and again, whenever Geralt wants, whatever Geralt is willing to give. It takes no time at all for Geralt to work him back open, and this time is so gentle. There’s none of the sobbing, none of the begging, none of the hate, the shame, the desperation he felt the night before. Just want, just need, just love. His thighs shake when Geralt sinks into him, and Geralt bounces him on his cock and Jaskier fucks back with obvious enthusiasm. He’d do anything to have this forever. He feels so full, so safe, so in love, so content, whole, happy, aching. He can’t get enough, can’t get close enough, can’t, not enough, never enough. Gods, he wants so much he doesn’t have any idea how to express it. He just fucks himself on Geralt’s cock and hopes that Geralt knows that Jaskier will never leave him, could never leave him, not on his own, not if Geralt still wants him here. 

By the time they get to the town Jaskier is well and truly exhausted. He skips the offer of a hot meal and a cold ale and falls right into bed, tossing clothes to the floor the second Geralt gets it open. Laying down on a mattress, a real mattress, elicits a long moan. His bare skin in a soft, threadbare sheet, his head buried into a pillow, feels like heaven. He’s asleep within minutes. There’s no fighting it, no seeing it coming, no gentle, slow fall into it. One minutes he’s awake and feeling the dip of Geralt crawling in beside him, and the next there’s sunlight. He wakes up, confused, because he’d only just crawled into bed, how can there be sunlight already? He covers his eyes with his hands, and groans. He doesn’t want to be awake. He knows he’s slept all night without waking or stirring once, but damn it it wasn’t enough. He wants to fall back asleep and know he’s asleep and know that when he wakes up it’ll be after hours of earning that sleep. 

Geralt stirs at the sound of his pouting and rolls over to press his bare chest against Jaskier’s. He’s sleep warm, he smells amazing, and Jaskier relaxes into Geralt’s arm snaking over his hip to pull him even closer. He does slip back into sleep then, easily, when Geralt silently asks him to, nuzzling into his neck and breathing deep. 

They’re going to have to talk about this. It’s going to happen sooner or later, Geralt is going to ask him why he hasn’t left yet, or Jaskier will admit to his love aloud. This magical silence between them, maintaining their fantasy of having the cake and eating it too has to shatter sooner or later. And no matter the outcome Jaskier will be happy to have had this moment, happy to give Geralt whatever it is that he’s asking him for. But Jaskier decides it won’t be him, it won’t be his word that do it. He’s done enough, made himself obvious enough. For once in his life Jaskier has spoken enough on a topic and he simply isn’t going to pick it up again until Geralt wants to.


	5. wraith

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was so difficult to write guys. It's kind of heavy, like CW: talk of character death, human mortality, but no genuine dying. 
> 
> This feels like the right place to end it, because I don't see them progressing any further in this particular setting. I'm really happy with it, with the emotional space they're stuck in now. It's really bitter guys, I didn't know this story was going to be so bitter lol
> 
> But I really hope you guys like it, thank you so, so, so much for all your supportive comments and I hope you like the ending as much as I do. <3 <3 <3

“It’s not much,” the old man sets a small coin purse into Geralt’s hand, gingerly holding his closed fist as he looks right into his eyes, “but please. I don’t want any one else to get hurt.” Jaskier can see the moment the old man’s sincerity won Geralt over. It is a subtle relaxation in the shoulders, a slight thinning of his lips. Jaskier tries not to beam. 

Geralt is an absolute sweetheart and it is the best kept secret in the Continent.

“I’ll take care of it tomorrow, on our way out of town.” The old man smiles, clearly thankful, and shakes Geralt’s fist in his hand. 

“Thank you, Witcher.” Geralt still looks suspicious everytime someone says thank you, no matter how much more common it’s become since Jaskier’s devoted his life to improving his image. The old man gets up to leave and Jaskier takes his place quick enough, setting down their refreshed ales. 

“You just got a contract?” Geralt nods, tucking the coinpurse into a pocket. 

“Nothing exciting. Just a stray pack of wolves who’ve taken up residence in an abandoned building on the outskirts of town.” Jaskier tilts his head, intrigued. It’s one thing to take such little coin for a contract, but to take one for clearing wolves?

“Well that’s a little out of the ordinary, isn’t it?” Geralt shrugs.

“Town’s known about it for a while, and people usually keep clear of it, but some kids decided to hold a contest to see who was more brave. One of them got mauled.” Jaskier watches Geralt scratch into his journal, pointedly ignoring the way Jaskier fondly stares at him.

Jaskier pushes himself closer to Geralt, pressing their bodies close, and settles himself into Geralt’s side. He’s gotten bolder the more Geralt drags him into his bed and fucks him breathless. Geralt allows him, but never once has reached out for him. Jaskier can see the way he relaxes each time Jaskier touches him, each time Jaskier expresses those typical, romantic affections. But not once has Geralt initiated those affections. It makes Jaskier feel lonely, even when he’s so obviously wanted. 

The wind has started to chill once more, summer slowly turning to fall, and this time around it settles into his knees more deeply than before. He stands with more effort, he walks just a little bit slower, and he has to stop to make camp earlier. With each day he worries that they’re only one day closer to Geralt slinking away to Kaer Morhen for another winter.

What if he doesn’t come back? What if he does but he won’t touch him again? Would he be able to survive the lonely winter with this curtain of uncertainty hanging over him? He’s not as young as he once was, his heart isn’t as quick to recover. 

Jaskier waits until his mind is pleasantly quiet, his body warm, and his limbs heavy before he turns to Geralt, bold, comfortable, not a single worry that Geralt wouldn’t happily accept his lazy kisses pressed to Geralt’s neck. 

“Take me to bed, darling.” Jaskier places his hand on Geralt’s thick thigh, humming in pleasure at the hard muscle. Geralt puts his hand on the back of Jaskier’s neck, squeezing gently, and he drains his mug of ale. Jaskier’s heartbeat speeds up with anticipation. When Geralt stands up Jaskier leaps to follow, but his knees protest. It’s not entirely new, but it’s a noticeable constant now. 

“Ofph, fuck.” Jaskier groans, placing his hand on a knee for some extra support. All this rough travel seems to finally start catching up to him. Not to mention all the extra time spent kneeling on the Path now. Jaskier feels a sharp twinge of anxiety. Dear Melitele, is he getting old?! He sees a flash of his future, gray haired, wrinkled, bedridden. There was going to be a day when he wouldn’t be able to follow Geralt anymore. It makes him swallow with fear, mouth dry, palms suddenly hot, sweaty. 

“Jask?” Geralt looks worried for a moment, his hand hovering over his side, hesitant for some reason. Jaskier just smiles, curling his arm around Geralt’s and continues pulling him toward their room.

“Oh, don’t worry darling, just old knees.” He tries not to show how nervous that fact makes him. He’s not worried about getting old, he’s always known he’ll look absolutely stunning the whole way through, like a fine wine only getting better with age. It is, though, the first time he’s had to face the fact that he won’t be able to follow Geralt around forever. One of these days, and they really are nipping at his heels, he simply won’t have it in him anymore. The thought of leaving Geralt’s side, of being left behind -not because he wasn’t wanted, or because he’d finally left to heal his shattered heart- but because he simply couldn’t do it anymore. Because his body had given up.

It’s a horrifying thought, one that Jaskier doesn’t want to have to face. Not now, not ever if he’s lucky. 

It’s so good. It’s always been good, but the more they fall into eachother the better it gets. Jaskier’s surprising even himself, he’s been downright insatiable these past few weeks. The colder the air gets the more he craves Geralt’s skin against his own. They can’t get close enough; he can’t get Geralt deep enough. He can’t get Geralt to stay. 

“Jaskier, if I weren’t a witcher I think my cock would’ve fallen off by now.” 

“If you weren’t a witcher I wouldn’t keep trying to climb you. One of these days I’ll wear you out.” Geralt chuckles against his skin, their bodies pressed together, Jaskier being smothered into the mattress. They didn’t fuck like this often, never like this, really. Jaskier doesn’t know what he did to earn such a good and through fucking but, gods, he hopes he can do it again and again.

“You’re certainly on the right track.” Geralt fucks into him slowly, keeping Jaskier’s legs spread far apart with his own, one hand curled into Jaskier’s, fingers laced, and the other one curled into his hair, forcing his head up as he sucks a severe mark into his shoulder. It’s insanely intimate, and slow, and exactly what Jaskier needed. He feels speared open and he can feel every single minute movement. Every roll of his hips feels like being fucked, and every long, slow thrust feels like being pounded.

It’s almost too much, emotionally. The longer he fucks him like this the heavier it makes his heart. This isn’t just fucking, it’s love. And it’s Geralt, not Jaskier, directing this moment. Geralt’s the one who’s plastered himself on Jaskier’s back, he’s the one who’s fucking him slow and close and so fucking intimately.

They haven’t spoken about this thing. Jaskier’s not willing to bring it up but it doesn’t mean he isn’t haunted by it. When Geralt does things like this, kisses him slow and deep and with no intentions of fucking him. When he falls to the ground in pain after a rough contract and pulls him into his lap and just holds him. When he fucks him like this, like it’s love, it tears him apart. Geralt loves him, Jaskier doesn’t have a single doubt about that fact, but he doesn’t want to. It’s as clear as the love he can see in Geralt’s eyes. Geralt hates that he loves him.

Jaskier lets out a breathy moan as Geralt lands a particularly well aimed, forceful thrust into him.

“Jaskier, stop thinking.” Jaskier shivers as he’s brought back fully into this moment, waves immense pleasure pouring over his body. He laughs but it’s lost quickly in his moaning.

“I’m a poet first, darling. If you want to bring me to silence, you’ll just have to do a better job of fucking me there.” They’re covered in sweat, Jaskier’s laying in the middle of a sticky puddle, they stink of sex. It’s incredible. He doesn’t want this moment to end, ever, but he can’t handle it a moment longer. If Geralt can fuck him like a lover then why can’t he want him like one, too? 

Geralt takes a particularly mean bite out of the base of Jaskier’s neck and does as he’s told, fucking him much harder now. The increased pace leads to more friction on his own cock and Jaskier doesn’t bother to try and hold back his orgasm. Jaskier knows that Geralt’s going to fuck him through it, and much longer after that. The change in pace, something rougher, more animalistic, makes it much easier for Jaskier to sink into that blessedly silent space where all he is is a body, and all he can process is the immense, building pleasure Geralt gives him. 

“I don’t smell wolves.” Geralt hops down from Roach, eyebrows pinched together, frowning. They’d found the abandoned building easily enough, it was just sitting about a mile off the path leading from the village, looking like it’d been there for a hundred years, untouched. The sun was high, but it was still cold. Winter was fast approaching, faster everyday. It made Jaskier melancholic. 

“Well, that’s strange then, isn’t it? If we’re here to clear a pack of wolves and there aren’t any.” Jaskier follows Geralt, watching him as he tilts his head, scenting the air. 

“I don’t smell them at all. There were never wolves.” 

“Then what mauled that child?” Jaskier can watch Geralt get upset in real time. This is suddenly a real contract, and one he didn’t do any of his usual preparation or information gathering for. His shoulders rise up, tense, his hands curl into fists, he huffs. It’s cute, really. Jaskier puts his hand over his mouth as if he’s deep in thought to try and hide his shy smile. He’s so in love. 

“I smell sulfur. We have an abandoned building that people know to avoid.” Geralt takes a small detour to the remains of a fence, walking slower now, more alert. 

Jaskier gasps, suddenly very excited. “It’s a ghost?” 

“I’m not fucking prepared for this.” Geralt grumbles as he ties Roach to the fence and begins to sift through the packs she’s carrying. 

“What do you need, how do you fight a ghost?” 

“Jaskier, try not to sound so excited. I have no way of knowing if it is one or not until the sun sets. All I do know is that it’s not a pack of wolves. And if it is a wraith, it’s not a the usual creature I’m contracted to fight. This was a human once.” Jaskier bites his lip, only a little guilty. His mind was swirling with questions, absolutely flooded with all the interesting implications that their existence has on the laws of the world. Of course, if his experiences with the Rusalka were to be trusted then he’s already seen what could happen to a human soul that experienced a violent end. 

Jaskier is only just now realizing that fact, all this time later, and it’s interesting how he’d totally missed it at the time. Maybe Geralt didn’t believe the story she’d told, he’d certainly never made any comment about the song he’d written about it. Perhaps his near death experience had effected him more than he’d realized, that he’d missed all the interesting implications the Rusalka’s story had on their world. Wraiths, rusalkas, these were monsters who only existed because a human soul had clung to life, unable to accept it’s death. 

“Does this have any effect on our understanding of the afterlife? Do they prove there is an afterlife? Does this prove the theory of a soul? How is the entire Continent not collectively loosing their shit over this?” Geralt levels him with a very unimpressed stare and Jaskier pouts, stomach flipping with a much stronger twinge of guilt. He knows he’s far too excited about this for Geralt’s comfort, which is fair. He should feel shittier about his blaze attitude but this is the most interesting, exciting, and confusing thing he’s learned about the world since traveling with Geralt. He can’t help the way his mind races. He’s a well educated nobleborn, who studied the seven liberal arts, he’s sat through more than a hundred discussions about whether or not man had a soul, if that soul went anywhere after death, and what effect that might have on morality, and their place in the universe. Life and death and rebirth, heaven and hell, or nirvana, or even nothing at all, this was a chance to glimpse at the answers of those questions. 

He wanted to ask about the Rusalka, about whether they were connected, if Geralt considered her with the same level of humanity he was affording this ghost, but the look in his eye and the scowl he wore made him bite his tongue. He didn’t want to make Geralt actually angry. 

“They’re incredibly rare, most people don’t think they’re real and oftentimes I’m hired for a wraith that turns out to just be nothing more than someone’s paranoia. If it is a wraith, then it’s someone who went through an unbearable amount of pain.” Now Jaskier feels like a dick and he knows he shouldn’t keep asking questions, but gods how his mind is swirling. 

“The Rusalka. Do you believe what she told me? About being human once.” Geralt’s pulled out a small pouch of something, attaching it to his belt, and a small vial of oil. He sits on one of the more sturdy looking rails of the remaining fence and works his jaw, thinking. Jaskier bites his lip, trying to keep his mouth shut to allow Geralt time to put together his answer. He’s glad Geralt is taking this question seriously, glad that Geralt is going to give him a considered answer, and he doesn’t want to distract him or make him feel like he isn’t taking this conversation seriously. He uses this time to dig out his journal.

“The Rusalka isn’t as rare of a creature as a wraith. They change their faces, their stories, and their voices to better ensnare their victims. What they say is little more trustworthy than the songs sirens sing.” Geralt begins to carefully rub an oil into his sword, and gods doesn’t that just sound absolutely filthy. Jaskier’s seen Geralt doing this before but hasn’t seen him pull out a vial of something so thick and horrifying in color. Almost like burnt sugar, not quite caramel, and a deep red. It poured like honey, slow. 

Jaskier smiles, small and rueful. “Have I discovered a subject that the great witcher Geralt of Rivia doesn’t know all about?” Geralt raises an eyebrow, glancing over at him for just a moment. Almost amused. 

“Humans are better suited to fretting over what happens to them after their deaths.” Jaskier watches him, the look that comes over him, and he suddenly, deeply regrets delving into this subject. What must death be to a witcher? Someone who’s entire purpose is to die one day, painful and violent and alone. Jaskier focuses on his journal, flipping through for a blank page to begin scratching down all the swirling thoughts, all the different songs this once conversation could build. 

“Do you think we should go back to town, ask around, see what we can find out before you head in there?” Geralt shrugs. 

“Not much point in it. The house is clearly old enough that anyone who would have known the story is long gone, not to mention the fact that the townsfolk don’t even think it’s a ghost.” Jaskier nods, quiet. His mind is still reeling. There’s absolutely no chance that Jaskier is going to stay along the fence, waiting with Roach until Geralt has handled this. If they truly are as rare as Geralt claims then this is possibly the only chance he’s going to have to see and interact and experience this particular type of experience. 

“And what is that you’re doing now?” 

“Well, in case it does end up being a wraith, they aren’t exactly the most solid creatures. This oil helps to tear through the veil to land blows easier. Better to be prepared for something and not need it.” Jaskier can feel the weight of Geralt’s stare, and he looks up, trying to bite back his smile. “We should make camp here, we aren’t going to be able to do anything until the moon is high. This isn’t going to be easy. You should really stay back, with Roach.” 

Jaskier raises an eyebrow, no longer able to hide his wicked smirk. “Even you know there’s no chance in hell I’ll be staying back.” Geralt huffs, lips pressed together, but he clearly isn’t going to argue it. At this point he knew there was little point in arguing with him about his safety. 

“Wraiths are incredibly resentful of the living Jaskier. The closer you get the more danger you’ll be in. Just.” Geralt huffs, jaw clenched tight. “Just try not to be seen.” The look in his eyes when he turns to Jaskier, pained, serious, almost frightened. It makes Jaskier pause. He knows that Geralt feels fear, this isn’t the first time he’s seen it on his witcher. Geralt’s even explained it to him, that witchers are taught to listen to their fear, but not allow it to determine their actions. Fear was just as necessary to their survival as their weapons were, it warned them, directed them, kept them safe. It was why witchers took such pains to be prepared for their battles in the first place. But the second they let that fear overtake them was the second they made a bad decision, one that could lead to their death. It was a careful line to toe, one that Jaskier didn’t have the first clue how Geralt managed it. 

“I promise, Geralt.” Geralt nods and returns to his preparations. Once Geralt was done they spent the afternoon making camp, slow and lazy. It was nice, taking their time, making camp before his feet were sore and his legs were tired and his stomach was grumbling loudly. They didn’t speak much, Jaskier’s mind was full of melodies, a hundred different directions he could take the story in. He became increasingly more anxious the lower the sun got, fingers becoming more and more restless with each passing hour. 

This was different from their usual contracts, it wasn’t often they had to wait so long, just feet away from the nest of the monster. Usually they spent their time locating it’s nest, or Jaskier was successfully convinced to stay behind in some tavern, distracted by a crowd and his lute. This felt so calm and that calmness only made him more nervous, knowing what was coming. Most importantly, or strangely depending, Jaskier was excited. It wasn’t often he was given such blatant permission to accompany Geralt on a contract that was so dangerous. His heart fluttered, and he had a thrilling, intoxicating twinge of danger shooting down his spine. He was shaking with it. 

When Geralt stood up Jaskier was surprised. There was no sound he could hear, no smell he could catch, no sign at all that the wraith had appeared. At least none Jaskier could catch. He’d expected something much more telling, a long wailing, the sound of old furniture being thrown against even older walls, a sudden heavy fog.

“Geralt? Is, is it time?” Jaskier stands, nervous, wiping dust from his ass. Geralt gives him an exhausted glance and walks over to him. Jaskier stays still, watching him, uncertain, but when Geralt puts his hand around Jaskier’s neck he floods with relief. Every touch from Geralt is a comfort. He leans forward, tilting his head to the side, lips parting gently. Geralt takes the bait, leaning into his space and kissing him, gentle, slow, warm. Jaskier sighs into it, allowing it to be loving, comforting. His eyes flutter when Geralt pulls back, resting their foreheads together. 

“Don’t cross that threshold, Jaskier.” He says it like a command but Jaskier can hear the twinge of worry in it. Can see it in the way Geralt can’t bring himself to open his eyes. Jaskier only nods, unwilling to make the promise verbally, but he does smirk, suddenly feeling very mischievous. 

“You aren’t going to try and give me another dagger, are you?” Geralt smiles, and it’s exactly what he was hoping to see. Suddenly all the weight on Geralt’s shoulder melting away. 

“Oh, no, I’ve learned my lesson very well.” Geralt smiles, just that hint of his mouth tugging upwards in the corners. It’s one of Jaskier’s favorite smiles, because it’s private, and it’s the smile Geralt makes when he’s trying not to. “I should start giving you lessons at some point.” 

“Preferably in a town with a very good healer.” It’s a comment that makes Geralt chuckle, mostly just a silent shake of his shoulders, his smile much larger now, unrestrained. It makes Jaskier’s chest warm with pride. He loves being able to do that. 

Jaskier watches Geralt walk to the house, suddenly incredibly unsure of what to do. He doesn’t know if he should pretend to stay behind, like he usually does when he knows he’s just going to follow Geralt. This time Geralt’s made it very clear that he knows Jaskier will be following but walking alongside him seems too improper. He’s so used to having to pretend like he isn’t going to be trailing behind him that following by his side seems wrong. So he stands by the fire, twittling his thumbs, awkward, uncomfortable, and waiting. 

Perhaps Geralt had used his subtle, reverse phycology on him. He picked up his journal, slipped Roach a sugar cube, and continued to wait. He couldn’t hear anything, couldn’t see anything in the dark house. Maybe it would be better to stay here, where he knew he’d be safe. 

But this was his once chance at a wraith sighting. He chewed his lip, and stared at the house, still waiting. He imagined Geralt wandering around in the empty, dusty rooms. Covered in cracks, mold, maybe overgrown by weeds and vines and wildflowers. Would the ghost produce it’s own light? Spectral and glowing and ugly? would Geralt see it before it manifested itself? 

What if it wasn’t a ghost? What if it was a pack of wolves after all? 

Jaskier walks down the old trail, shaking with nerves and excitement. Whatever is going on in that house, he just simply has to witness it.

He makes it to the porch just in time to hear a loud crash and he jogs to the remains of a window to peer inside. Geralt’s rolling around, pushing himself up off the floor back to his feet, and he’s surrounded by planks of rotted wood. Jaskier can see a flash of bright light as something passes across the hole in the wall.

It’s silent. The air thrums with something, heavy and charged, almost like when the wind picks up and he can see a particularly bad storm rolling over the horizon. It smells similarly, too, actually. He holds he breath, watching Geralt spin and stand totally still, watching the house, waiting, poised and ready to attack. There’s none of the wailing, none of the haunting singing he’d come to expect from the stories he’d heard of ghosts. 

It’s a long, long moment before Geralt is attacked again, something he can’t see at all pushing him into the floor, halfway across the room, without a single warning. Geralt turned to face it mere seconds before he went flying, and Jaskier wonders if Geralt’s witchery mutations allow him to see something Jaskier can’t. Once Geralt gets up again it’s more of the same. Standing and waiting and smelling and watching. This time when his head snaps in one direction Jaskier watches him swing his sword and now he can hear the wailing he’s been expecting. 

When the ghost makes itself visible it’s an absolutely nauseating sight. It’s soaked with blood, some of it still red and oozing, some of it black and stiff with age. It radiates with rage, it’s skin burned and twisted. Jaskier gasps, eyes wide, at the sight of it. That’s when he catches a whiff of it, sulfuric and rotting, and he wraps his hand around his mouth to try and prevent himself from retching. He can’t bring himself to look away, his feet rooted to the rotting floor, watching Geralt stalk it, careful, attentive, taking slow steps. It seems that the very sight of Geralt, breathing and moving and pink with blood still pumping through his veins, is enough to fill the ghost with rage. Jaskier can feel it in the air, almost humming with electricity, almost sparking. 

When the ghost lunges, shrieking loud enough to shake the walls, Geralt tosses a handful of something that makes the ghost immediately more solid than it’s been before -suddenly almost looking human- and swings his sword at the same time as the ghost lands a claw along Geralt’s jaw. Geralt goes slamming into the floor once more while the ghost wails as the slash from Geralt’s sword glows, oozing something thick and black and absolutely horrendous. 

Jaskier can’t see Geralt anymore and he leans forward, unthinking, to see him rolling onto his feet, looking absolutely full of rage, a long cut along his jaw already pouring blood, snarling. 

The second Jaskier’s head enters the frame of the window, just a momentary glimpse of Geralt, he’s blown back by a wave of pressure. His head slams into the railing and he slumps to the floor, dazed, and ears splitting with the wailing. He opens his eyes to the white hot light of the ghost in the window, just in time to witness Geralt regaining the ghost’s attention with a stab into it’s side. The ghost’s wailing somehow only gets louder and Jaskier watches as Geralt gets flung back once more. He scrambles to his feet. There’s a loud crash to his right. Jaskier runs towards it, unthinking. 

When he turns the corner he can see Geralt on the porch, groaning, pissed, surrounded by splintered wood. He’s got blood dripping down his brow. His sword has clattered to the dead, weeded remnants of a garden, glinting in the moonlight, but out of reach.

“Jask,” Geralt huffs, clearly in pain, and Jaskier lands on his knees next to him, “stay back.” Jaskier rolls his eyes and helps him sit up, ignoring the instructions. When Geralt hisses, loud and labored, Jaskier glowers. 

“Where is it?” Geralt glances at him and Jaskier can tell by his sheepish silence that he’s right. “Where’re you hurt, Geralt? Tell me now or I’ll jump into that hole in the wall and make this much more troublesome for you.” Jaskier would never and he knows that Geralt knows that he would never, but it was more than enough to make him nervous. 

“My left side.” Jaskier glanced back into the house, the ghost was incorporeal once more, silent. Jaskier only caught glimpses of it’s light, flittering about, back to being undisturbed, back to wandering it’s tiny cage. Jaskier sucks in a shaky breath and turns his attention to Geralt’s left side, where he’s oozing blood, and a large chunk of wood is sticking out of his skin. Gods, he hopes that’s not deep in there, isn’t this what all that leather armor is for? Preventing nasty things like that from going in too deep? The wood is wedged into that three inch cut in his leathers that’s there to give him better mobility, a mere five inches above the cleft of his ass. 

Jaskier lets out a low whine, incredulous, and gently touches the wood. Geralt only emits a low grumble, tense, but not sounding like he’s in too much pain at all. 

“Should I take it out?” Jaskier asks, trying to sound a hell of a lot more confident than he feels.

“It’ll heal faster if my body doesn’t have to push it out on it’s own.” Jaskier bites his lip, grabs a hold of it, and yanks. Geralt sits up, biting back a growl, huffing through the pain, spine ramrod straight. It didn’t gush blood, and the wooden chunk Jaskier had pulled from him really wasn’t that long at all. 

“Do you think we should wait until tomorrow night?” Geralt took in a long breath through his nose, let it out slowly through his mouth, and rolling his weight onto his heels. 

“No. Better to take care of this now. This is barely a scratch.” Geralt stands up and saunters off, in search for his sword. Jaskier looks back into the room, watching the ghost’s slow movements, and lazily points in the direction he’d seen Geralt’s sword earlier. 

“Sword’s around there somewhere.” He circles his hand around at the wrist as a poor attempt at directing Geralt’s attention. He can see the ghost, calm now, still horrifying, still rotted, but gentler now, somehow. Lost. It’s silent, probably one of the reasons why the town never suspected the house to be haunted, and it’s glow is so low it would be easy to blame it on a trick of the eye. 

“What is it doing, Geralt?” 

“If it’s here, and wandering around the house like that, then it’s someone who lived here. Something happened that made it impossible for it to accept it’s death. It’s trapped here.” 

“Is there any way to help it?” Jaskier looks over to Geralt as he walks back up onto the porch, to stand close to him, his eyes trained on the ghost, watching. “To help it let go peacefully?” 

“None that I’ve ever heard of. Best I can do is slay it, force it into it’s death, and hope it can find peace in that.” Jaskier looks back into the house, shoulders falling. He feels lost. The more time he spends with Geralt the more he sees of human pain, desperate, lives cut too short, souls twisted in rage. 

How much longer until Jaskier has to face his death? Will he be capable of meeting it with grace? 

He watches Geralt cross that threshold once more, watches the way the ghost is immediately angered by it, watches their fighting continue. 

There are a thousand different things that could force a man to fight his death. A hundred different scenarios that could be so painful, so violent, that they would dig their claws into the air and resist. Death has never been something Jaskier has worried about much, never something he’s had to consider, something he’s given a single thought to. Even despite all the times he’s come close, all the scares he’s collected alongside Geralt, he hasn’t paused to think about his own demise, usually so much more worried about Geralt’s. 

Geralt had explained to him once, a long long time ago, that witchers weren’t given a soft death. They didn’t die of old age, in their sleep, in their homes, surrounded by loved ones.

When Geralt’s done, and they walk back to their camp, and Jaskier’s taken proper care of Geralt’s wound, and they’ve eaten, Jaskier stares into the flames and finally finds his voice. 

“Geralt. How old are you?” Jaskier can feel Geralt next to him, cleaning his sword now that he’s taken care of his armor, found it to be intact. Jaskier can feel him pausing in his ministrations, feel the weight of his attention. 

“Maybe one hundred, at least. I stoped keeping count around the nineties, didn’t seem to be much point in it.” Jaskier had known this about witchers, that they aged much slower. The mutations effected them, made the immense investment in their training worth it. If they had a human lifespan, they’d only be a useful witcher for maybe twenty years, thirty if they were lucky. He hadn’t realized, though, just how much their mutations effected their lifespan. 

“You’re going to have to watch me die one day. And then you’ll have to keep on.” Jaskier turns to loo at Geralt, to see the open fear in his face. His shoulders are tense, his jaw is clenched. “How long do you think? Will you have to go after I die?” Geralt’s nostrils flare and Jaskier knows that he’s finally found it. The heart of the reason for the space between them. The reason Geralt loves him but so desperately doesn’t want to. The reason why he’d spent so many years keeping him at arm’s length, refusing to touch him, refusing to love him, even actively trying to run away from him. The reason why he’d tied his own life to Yennefer. He wouldn’t have to outlive her. He wouldn’t have to watch her age, become frail, and old, and die. 

“There’s no way to know, Jask. How long. There’s no telling how long our lifespans can be.” Jaskier doesn’t cry, doesn’t even tear up, just lays his weight onto Geralt’s shoulder. He’s sad, but he’s so tired from being so sad. The more he learned about Geralt the more his heart broke. He’s been so selfish. 

“Am I going to become that? A monster?” Geralt gently wraps his arm around Jaskier’s waist, resting his chin on Jaskier’s head, holding him, taking his weight easily, unmoved. 

“No, Jaskier. You.” Jaskier can feel Geralt’s hold tighten around him, protective, possessive. “I won’t let you.” Jaskier’s hands start to shake. He’s been so selfish, wanting more and more of Geralt, never truly satisfied with what Geralt was willing to give, always wanting to sink his finger in deeper, claim him totally as his own. He shouldn’t say it, he shouldn’t tell Geralt something new, something that he’ll just have to carry with him, knowing, for several lifetimes longer than Jaskier will be here, with him. 

But he can’t help himself. He’s been so selfish, he’ll continue to be so selfish. He wants him, wants to own him, wants Geralt to remember him until the end of time. No matter how unfair, how horrible, how selfish, he wants Geralt to be ruined by his hands. His. Forever. 

“I don’t think I’ll be able to let you go, Geralt. Leave you here, alone, without me. How can I let go of you peacefully, when it’s time to?” He whispers it, scowling, feeling the rage boiling under his skin at the mere thought of it. 

“Jaskier, please,-”

“Will you have to kill me? If I can’t do it? If I. If I hold on?” Geralt wraps his other arm around him then, burying his fingers in his hair, pressing him into his chest, breathing hard, holding him even harder. Jaskier does cry then, but it’s not sad. He’s furious. Geralt’s life has been stolen from him. He’s been forced to become a monster slayer, a monster in the eyes of his fellow humans, rejected by all, resented and feared. And now this? A lifetime so long he’s forced to watch any human he may allow himself to befriend, any human he’s unlucky enough to fall in love with, die. Slow. Human. 

How can Jaskier ever bring himself to leave Geralt with dignity, knowing this? 

“Jaskier, please don’t make me do that. Please don’t make me watch you go through something so painful. Not because of me. Not for me. Please.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm fairly certain I'll be adding an epilogue, just to soften the blow a bit, and because this does feel rather abrupt upon second viewing. That will be a while for me to write though because I don't have any ideas for that just yet. If you want/need one just let me know and I'll make it more of a priority over the other projects I'm stitching together right now. 
> 
> Thanks again loves, this has been such a joy to write!


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